


Metanoia

by vulturewomen



Category: The Creatures | Cow Chop RPF
Genre: Animal Death, Body Horror, Character Death, Domestic Violence, Dubious Consent, Graphic Description of Corpses, Hallucinations, M/M, Masturbation, Murder, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:49:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 39,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29939895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulturewomen/pseuds/vulturewomen
Summary: “Trevor”, he starts, not really wanting to go on, “there’s something in the water”.He turns to look at Trevor, whose eyes are brimming with tears, his face white with fear. He talks slowly, as if talking loudly or quickly is going to alert the thing in the water that they know it's there.“I’m not going to point, but there’s a head sticking out of the water. Where the rock stopped jumping, can you see it?” and Trevor nods, his eyes almost stuck. Almost like he can’t look away.Trevor’s mouth opens, and he swallows, and he whispers, “I can see eyes, Aleks. The eyes are pitch fucking black”, his hands are shaking. “It’s watching us”.
Relationships: Aleksandr Vitalyevich Marchant/James Richard Wilson, Asher | TheFirst/Jakob | AlsoJakob
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	1. Prologue

**_"But the dead are dead. Presumably they have finished with wanting.”_ **

* * *

9th November 1986

The swell breaks against the legs of the pier, the turbid waters frothing white at its lip; the wood begins to rot against the beating. A thick, white fog settles across the lake. The morning sky is an unassuming blackness; dawn sat just behind the trees in anticipation for her own arrival. The crows fly in languid circles as devourers; thieves to the pickings that float atop of the water. The rain starts. It falls like mortars and the drops are swallowed into the lake.

A fisherman sits, dangling his legs off the end of the pier with his feet in the water. He kicks his legs back and forth, impatiently waiting for his reel to catch. The sinker bobs unnoticed on the surface and the fisherman screws up his toes in frustration. A loud splash catches the fisherman’s attention, and he watches with bated breath, waiting for his sinker to disappear. But it doesn’t move at all. The fisherman squints past the fog and into the water. He watches big bubbles float to the surface, far too big for bass or walleyes, and he swallows, uneasily.

He watches the water even out. Placid in the darkness before dawn, waiting. It watches the fisherman as the fisherman watches it. An abyss.

The sinker drops. It disappears under the water in an instant, and the fisherman grasps for his fishing pole, reeling the line in, eagerly. The line offers no resistance, and the sinker sits wet in his lap, empty. He frowns, both in frustration and anger, and reaches across his equipment and into the tin for a worm to bait the hook.

The water moves, again. The fisherman stops what he’s doing, his hands in between the task of impaling the worm on the hook. The worm flails as it's being crushed and is offered no mercy. He looks through his lashes, with shadows being hard to distinguish in the darkness, and sees nothing. He hears nothing.

The water sits silently.

Something grasps at his ankle. A skilled fisherman has been bitten aplenty by fish and can identify a fish just by the sharpness of its teeth. Whatever is grasping his ankle is not a fish, nor is it using its mouth.

He tries not to panic. He tries not to think of his wife, of his beautiful daughter. He tries to think of God, of Heaven, of the good deeds he has done in this life.

Something sharp digs into the bone and pulls, and the fisherman plunges into the water. The final word of the fisherman is “no”, sung loudly, a guttural scream that is engulfed by the lake. The air from his mouth sits on the surface as a eulogy, a short-lived goodbye. The air bubble pops. The water sits, undisturbed.

Dawn slithers over the trees, and the sky is bathed in bands of orange.

The water sits silently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote is from The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson.


	2. Chapter One

16th November 1986

A missing poster, frayed at the edges, sits precariously stapled to a telephone pole.

“Larry Brooks, 46, last scene on 5th November, please call—"

The bottom half of the poster is missing, the paper seemingly having been ripped in half. Aleks runs his finger along the fray. He runs his thumb over his finger, where the paper disturbed the skin. He huffs, disgusted.

“What're you looking at?” Trevor calls over Aleks’ shoulder.

“Just this poster. Some guy went missing last week, but it looks like someone ripped off the number”.

“Wow. What a dickhead thing to do,” Trevor scoffs in reply.

Aleks raises his eyebrows, briefly, unsurprised. He gestures to Trevor, wordlessly, to walk with him. “In this town, nothing surprises me anymore”.

Trevor bumps his shoulder against Aleks and laughs, “Come on! At least you have me. It could be worse!”

Aleks raises an eyebrow, “I think it’s already worse.” He jokes, briefly, at Trevor’s expense, “Have you ever noticed how many Missing Persons’ Posters there are in this town?”

Trevor purses his lips and frowns, shaking his head. “Can’t say that I have, no”.

Aleks gestures an arm out and runs it along the length of the street. “Look, there’s a poster stapled to every other pole. Some of them have been there for ages.”

“Maybe they’ve been found, and the families have just forgotten to come and take them down?” Trevor offers, trying to be helpful.

Aleks shakes his head, “My dad would'a told me, besides, this guy”, Aleks starts, flicking his finger at the newest poster, “went missing 4 days ago. A, uh," he squints at the paper, "Larry Brooks. I’ve seen him around town before. And that one”, he gestures across the street to a poster beginning to yellow with age, “went missing in ’83. 3 years ago, Trevor”, Aleks swallows, “Danielle Estevez. She was only fourteen, and they still haven't found her”.

Worry sits just behind Trevor’s eyes and in the slight bags that hang beneath them. “I think you might be too hung up on this. What can you do about it?”, Trevor furrows his brows, “I’m sure the cops will find them, eventually”.

Aleks raises his eyebrows, briefly, in indignant disbelief, “yeah, I’m sure they will. They’ve been doing a bang-up job so far”.

Trevor claps a hand against Aleks shoulder, lightly pushing him ahead. “Come on, we’re going to be late for school. Senior year, baby!”.

* * *

The town is an old, industrial one. Founded in the mid 20’s by a string of emigrants, the town was once booming. Now, it sits on the border of forgotten and lost, as if the line between those two things is thick enough to differentiate between them.

There’s not much there, nor has there ever been, nor will there ever be.

It’s one of those towns where everyone knows everyone, and if asked to, Aleks could draw their family tree; but he doesn’t really know them. Not like he should, perhaps. Not like a small town like this advertises.

Aleks can honestly say he only really knows 5 people, or 5 people that behave more like 4.

Trevor is his best friend and has been since the first day of elementary school. Trevor was the first boy he met, and for a brief period, the first boy he wanted to kiss. But as his friendship with Trevor grew, the urge dissipated into just a funny, distant memory in the back of his brain.

Aleks wonders, sometimes, if he’d be able to survive without Trevor. If having Trevor by his side, consistently, for just over a decade has somehow hindered his ability to grow as an individual. If he’s so worried about being without him, how is he ever going to survive on his own? And if that is the case, well, so be it. Not a lot he can do about it now.

Asher and Jakob are, through their own regard, his other best friends. They were the first queer people he met in high school, and they’ve been together for as long as he’s known them. He wonders if, when the earth created itself some 13 billion years ago, if the stars had aligned themselves to make it happen. If they had sat high up in the sky, waiting for them to meet. Rejoicing when their plan fell into being. Crying with joy, perhaps.

They had been the people that helped him come to terms with his own sexuality. Helped him come to terms with his loving of boys, of men, of something not quite right. Of course, he knows it’s not wrong, or, he knows this now. But growing up, not so much. His father had other ideas. Other archaic ideas that didn't belong this close to a new millennium. 

They were a supposed niche group. You only ever knew of a queer person who just happened to be a friend of a friend of your aunt's gardener, and yet, here they are. Sons, and brothers, and fathers and daughters and sisters and mothers. 

Brett is a close friend, perhaps not best friend, but a close friend he’s helping pass biology.

The seat next to Brett in his first biology class had been left empty, and with no other empty seats in the room, Aleks had no choice but to take it. Aleks had, at first, been intimidated by Brett. By the sheer size of him. Despite only being 16, at the time, he was the size of a fully-grown power athlete. But through, and after, his first conversation with Brett, Aleks came to realise very quickly that he was the softest boy Aleks had ever met, and a certain attraction that had been bubbling in his stomach made itself known. Aleks had never acknowledged it, or rather, never acknowledged it out loud and he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, ever.

The boys didn’t see Brett very often. He split most of his time between the library and the wrestling gym. Aleks had gone to watch once, and only once. Watching a group of sweaty boys roll around on the floor was now left to the privacy of his own bedroom.

Lindsey is, not firstly or lastly, his other close friend. They’d met each other after a teacher had picked on him in class and he’d clammed up, not being able to answer. She’d caught up to him after class and grilled him about his abilities, and after learning that English was perhaps not even his second language, she decided she’d elect herself his English tutor and help his pass for senior year.

The boys often referred to her as the Mother Hen of the group, usually taking responsibility for anything stupid they’d planned, or were in the process, of doing.

Without her, Aleks doubted any of them would still be free men, or alive, for that matter.

* * *

Aleks can feel his eyes growing heavy, and the clock seems to move at half the pace it usually does, so he doesn’t bother to look at it again. The professor’s voice drones on, seeming further away than it actually is. Something about prefixes, or suffixes, or gerunds, or, whatever. 

He feels a sharp jab in his thigh, and turns his head to look at Lindsey, who’s saying something to him with a frown on her face. He can’t hear her, or rather his brain is too tired to process it, and he nods to placate her.

The bell trills, probably, 15 minutes later. Aleks holds his open rucksack at the edge of the table and unceremoniously brushes his things into the bag. The paper sits crumpled at the bottom and Lindsey huffs, perhaps regretting her offer, lamenting tutoring such insolence.

They wait for everyone else to leave the class, lest they get trampled in the doorway, and when the class is empty, they up and leave the classroom together, Lindsey somewhat further ahead in annoyance, and walk to the courtyard outside where everyone else is sat around a wooden picnic bench waiting for them.

Trevor greets Aleks first, as per, with a quick hug and a clap on the back. “Hey, guys. How was English?” he says to Aleks, but more so directed at Lindsey.

Lindsey rolls her eyes and looks briefly at Aleks, not long enough to be caught but Aleks knows her well enough to know. “It was okay. Aleks fell asleep halfway through, though, so not great for him. Guess you’ll just have to catch up later”, and she sends a wry smile his way when Aleks looks over. 

They’re good enough friends to know she doesn’t mean it.

“Ah, shit”, Jakob starts, “we were planning to go to the lake tonight.”

And reflexively, Aleks looks to Lindsey, as if asking for permission. As if she really is their mother. She tucks a hair behind her ear, resigned and holds her hands up in a shrug. “Go. I’ll write up some notes for you to revise off, but you better do it. If I found out you haven’t, I won’t be happy.”

He smiles apologetically in her direction.

“It is supposed to rain, though”, Brett announces as if the information wouldn’t have been more helpful to him 30 seconds prior.

“Oh, fuck. I don’t really feel like getting wet,” Aleks says and Asher, not really caring that he isn’t being spoken to, replies,

“I thought you liked getting wet”, a deviant gloss coating his eyes; smiling with his tongue between his teeth.

And Aleks stands with his mouth hanging open in disbelief that Asher would imply something so crude. Asher reaches across the space between them and pushes his bottom jaw up to close his mouth, “you’ll catch flies”, and Aleks swats his hand away in petty annoyance.

“Fuck you. Fine, I’m coming.” He squawks and gestures towards Brett. “Pick me up on your way there”.

“You have a car,” Brett argues, “why can’t you drive yourself?”

“Pick me up, idiots, or I won’t come”, he jokes. If Brett wants him to drive himself, then he will, but he’d rather not and if they want him to come with them so bad, they ought to carpool with him.

“Thought you liked coming?”

“Fuck off!”

* * *

It gets to 7pm and the heavens have opened. The rain falls like mortars, and big dark puddles drown the potholes in the road. Brett’s tire dips into one and splashes dirty water up the side of his truck. He curses under his breath, annoyed that he’ll have to clean it a second time in one year.

Aleks sits in the passenger seat, watching the rain droplets race down the window and trying to guess which one will win. Why on Earth they were out in this weather is beyond him, but it’s a bit too late to whine about it now. He could’ve said no.

The lake isn’t too far from any of their houses, and so has become a regular hangout. It, like most things in this town, is generally forgotten about so they can mess around out there in peace, with no one coming to disturb them. They’d most recently decided to build a small campfire to keep themselves warm if they decided to stay out there late, but it had unceremoniously disappeared only a week after they’d built it, so Aleks figures they’re not as alone as they think they are.

The rain calms down and stops before they get to the lake. When they arrive, there’s a car parked in the parking lot, it’s front tire flat, but when they get out, they can’t seem to see anyone. So, Asher, Jakob and Trevor wander off, laughing to themselves about something juvenile, Aleks imagines.

Brett pops the trunk and pulls out 4 sun-bleached deck chairs, as if they’re at the beach in the summer, and not at an abandoned lake after a torrential downpour.

Brett looks over and catches Aleks watching him, “I didn’t think you would want to come so I didn’t bother packing you one this morning”, as a way of explanation, or apology, but Aleks shrugs, not really bothered. “Would you give me a hand with them?” He says, passing two chairs for Aleks to carry.

Aleks notes how rusty the legs are. “How old are these?”, he asks, and Brett talks from inside the trunk so Aleks can only just hear him.

“20 years? I don’t know. They were my dad’s old fishing ones, but he doesn’t fish anymore so I asked if I could have them”.

“Your dad used to fish? I didn’t know that,” Aleks shouts to Brett, trying to make himself heard.

“Yeah!”, his voice is muffled by the body of the car, “he used to fish on this lake, actually. Which is kind of funny, now that we hang out here,” and Aleks chuckles, not really finding it funny but finding the situation needing one.

“Why’d he stop coming?”

And Brett gets out of the trunk then, a towel hanging over one arm and a cooler in the crook of the other. “Don’t know. Just came home one morning freaked out and never went back.”

Aleks hums in response, not really knowing what to say. His dad didn’t fish.

Brett gestures for Aleks to walk ahead. They put their stuff down where the scorched remnant of the campfire sits. Aleks sets the chairs down and unfolds them so they’re sat in a phantom campfire circle. Brett opens the cooler and offers Aleks a beer to which he denies.

“No, thanks. Lindsey’s mad enough as it is without me getting drunk to top it off”, and Brett chuckles.

“What, is she your mother?”

“She might as well be. She’s trying to help me pass English and I’m just fucking her around, basically”, and Brett shrugs.

“You’ll get there eventually. I got there with bio and I thought that was a lost cause”, and Aleks smiles, his chest fluttering.

Asher must have exceptional hearing, because he hears Brett crack open a can of beer and runs over to beg for one. Brett sits his down in the cup-holder of the chair and reaches down to pass two cans to Asher, knowing him too well. 

He thanks Brett and runs back over to Jakob and Trevor, skipping rocks, and offers the other one to Jakob, who thanks him with a chaste kiss on the mouth.

Brett and Aleks sit down in the deck chairs, Aleks’ slightly rocking on one side, not helped by the uneven floor of pebbles.

Trevor’s indignant “why didn’t you get me one?” echoes across the length of the lake, and far back, along by the trees that act as a canopy, bubbles float to the surface.

Trevor scuffs his feet along the pebbles as he comes over for his own beer, mock upset that Asher didn’t get him one, knowing full well that he wouldn’t. Brett reaches from his seat into the cooler to throw Trevor one, and it hits him square in the chest.

Aleks begins to say, “don’t open—” but the fizz of the liquid spilling over the side of the can interrupts him, “—it.”

“Brett!”, Trevor whines, “my shirt’s wet.”

“Did you bring an extra one?” Brett asks, not budging.

“No?”

Brett laughs, “then ya’ gotta deal with it, bud. You shouldn’t’ve opened the can if you didn’t want to get wet. Here”, he reaches to the floor for the towel, “use this to dry off” and throws it to Trevor. Trevor just catches it, and thanks him, not sure if he really means it. Considering it was Brett’s fault, anyway.

“Want to come skip rocks with us?” Trevor’s talking to Aleks now, and he’s extended a hand for Aleks to take.

Aleks squints up at Trevor, as if trying to protect his eyes from the sun, except that it’s 7pm and practically dusk. “I don’t know how to”, Aleks admits. It’s not like being taught how to skip rocks was ever something Aleks’ dad wanted to teach him.

“We’ll teach you! Come on!”, and he’s practically begging now, and Aleks is far too soft to say no. 

So, he says yes and takes Trevor’s hand to be lifted into a stand.

Trevor lets go and runs ahead, trying to get the best rocks to skip, leaving Aleks to walk behind him. Aleks watches the horizon, and watches bubbles float along the surface of the water. He bets Brett’s dad would know what kind of fish it was, if he asked.

“Hey, here’s a good one”, Jakob says when he gets there, passing Aleks a round, flat rock.

“Thank you,” Aleks says, taking it from him, and Jakob nods and turns away.

“Okay”, Trevor starts, “so, sort of like—half crouch, and bend your arm towards you. Now, you want to look along the water and, like, envision the rock jumping, and then when you’re ready, extend your arm and throw the rock like a frisbee, like this—”, Trevor throws the pebble, and it bounces along the water four times; sinking at the end of the line, “see? Easy! You try!”.

Aleks nods, it seems easy enough. Christ, it’s only skipping a rock.

He crouches, bends his arm, and looks along the water.

Envision the jump, envision the jump.

He watches the bubbles float towards them.

Envision the jump.

He extends his arm and throws the rock. He overshoots, and it flies sideways and hits Asher on the back of the arm.

He shouts in pain and grabs his arm.

“Oh shit—, I’m sorry. Fuck, I really didn’t mean to do that. I’m sorry”, and everyone is laughing, and Aleks only feels slightly less apologetic. What a shit shot.

“Okay, well”, Asher says, “we’re going to get out of the way”, and he reaches for Jakob’s hand and walks them away from the splash zone, and up the hill of pebbles over to Brett. Aleks watches them sit down on the chairs, and only then feels they’re a safe enough distance not to get hit.

“Do you want to try again?” Trevor asks, tentatively, like Aleks is a child. Like Aleks is this close to exploding. As if skipping rocks is hard.

“Yep, give me a rock”, Aleks demands and holds a hand out for Trevor to pass him a rock. He passes him a slightly bigger, slightly heavier one this time. He turns slightly to the left and faces the lake side on.

He crouches, holds his arm against his body, and extends. The rock flies out of his hand, and jumps. And jumps, and jumps—

And Trevor grabs his arm and shakes it in excitement, “You’re doing it, you’re doing it—” he’s saying in Aleks’ ear, and Aleks is watching the rocks, and watching the bubbles, and clunk—.

The rock hits something and sinks.

Aleks frowns, and raises himself up onto his toes to squint into the water, “did you see that?”

“Yeah”, Trevor nods in his periphery, “I did”.

The water gets darker, quickly. A circle of darkness expands around where the rock sunk, and it looks like—,

“Oh, fuck! Is that blood?” Trevor asks, mania sitting in his throat, “how is it blood? How could it be blood? Why is there so much?” and he’s rambling to himself like a mad man, trying to convince himself that it’s just seaweed, or a dark spot, or anything but blood.

Aleks watches the water move. The blood sits on the surface like oil; unmoving. He watches the spill part and a head break the surface. There’s something in the water watching him. Its hair sits, matted and sodden, along the water; blacker than night.

“Trevor”, he starts, not really wanting to go on, “there’s something in the water”.

He turns to look at Trevor, whose eyes are brimming with tears, his face white with fear. He talks slowly, as if talking loudly or quickly is going to alert the thing in the water that they know it's there. 

“I’m not going to point, but there’s a head sticking out of the water. Where the rock stopped jumping, can you see it?” and Trevor nods, his eyes almost stuck. Almost like he can’t look away.

Trevor’s mouth opens, and he swallows, and he whispers, “I can see eyes, Aleks. The eyes are pitch fucking black”, his hands are shaking. “It’s watching us”.

“We should probably leave”, Aleks suggests but he’s already moving. He starts to walk towards Brett, but Trevor is still standing there, just shy of the water, watching this thing watch him.

Aleks can feel himself going into a panic. “Trevor, come on!”, but Trevor stands, immovable. It’s like Trevor can’t even hear him. 

Aleks runs towards him, not really in the mood to dilly dally, and grabs Trevor by the arm, yanking him up the hill towards Brett, the pebbles rolling down the hill at the force of his feet.

“Asher and Jakob, stop whatever gay shit you’re doing and get in the car, now. Brett, I need you to not ask questions. I just need you to get in the car and drive.”

“What—, what’s going on? What about our stuff? What about the chairs?” Brett’s doing nothing except asking questions, which is the opposite of what was asked of him.

Aleks lets go of Trevor’s arm and forces him into the car, just stopping himself from doing the seatbelt up for him. “Fuck the chairs, Brett!”, Aleks shouts, “They’re shitty, anyway! Get in the fucking car and drive now, so help me God! I’ll explain everything later,” and gets in the car. 

He slams the door behind him and gestures angrily from inside for Brett to hurry.

Brett gets in and starts the ignition. He reverses and then dry skids to turn the car around. The tires squeal when the car peels out of the parking lot, the driver’s door slamming itself closed on the acceleration.

It sits in the lake, watching them leave. It blows air out through its nose and sinks down back into the blackness, the bubbles billowing around it.

The bubbles sit on the surface briefly, watching dusk turn to night, before they pop.

The water sits silently.


	3. Chapter Two

23rd Novemver 1986

A body lay mottled under the pier. Bloated and green; it rolls up along the wood against the water. Its neck in ruins, the tongue hanging half-out along its throat. A hand clutching soil, fingernails black to the bone, floats on the surface. As if one last grab wasn’t enough, it lays under the pier as a gift; and a greeting. Eyes watch, from afar; standing sentry. Waiting for the gift to be collected, it waits for the boy. 

Beneath the surface lies a monster. Something unimaginable, something loathsome, and something not quite right.

* * *

The oppressing dark watches him. It sits along the ceiling, and down the walls; the overwhelming blackness edges into the corners of his vision. He feels breathless. There’s a heavy weight sat on his chest, slowly crushing him, and his throat feels as if it’s swelled to the side of his neck. It smells like dirt, or soil, or a thick, dark mud he’s sunken down to the ankles into. The room feels humid. 

Aleks bats his eyes open, barely, and can’t see anything. He can’t see shadows of furniture, or moonlight coming through the window. It’s like he’s staring into a black hole.

He kicks the duvet off his legs; sodden with sweat and swings his legs over the side of the bed. He moves to stand and steps straight into 6 inches of water. The water is freezing, and something soggy brushes against his foot. He yelps and steps backwards blindly, trying to get a foot onto the side of the bed so he can get out of the water. His foot slips, and he hits his back against the frame as he falls to the floor; water flying up around him at the force.

He screws his eyes up in pain, breathing through his teeth to stop himself from crying, or vomiting, and when he opens them, the water is gone. He’s sat on the floor; on an old dirty carpet, and moonlight is bathing the room in swaths of light.

He brings his hands to his face and rubs his eyes into his head. He runs hands along his forehead and into his hair; standing in all directions from a fitful sleep. He turns his head, just, to look at the clock on the bedside table. It’s time for him to get up, so it doesn’t really matter that he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep anyway.

Head spinning, he cautiously makes his way down the stairs. His hand shakes against the handrail and an uneven rhythm beats down against it and echoes in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs.

He veers right and into the kitchen. A shadow looms in the doorway to the living room. His hand shakes as he feels along the wall for the light switch. He flicks his finger against it and the lightbulb explodes above his head. The noise startles him, and white dread sits hot against the back of his head. When he looks back to the doorway, the shadow is gone.

Where dawn gives him just enough light to meander without hitting any furniture, he cautiously makes his way over to the fridge; bare feet thudding against the linoleum. A magnet, with a picture of him at 10 years old, clings to a note from his father.

_Doing the night beat. Don’t wait up for me. There’s money for lunch on the side._

Aleks stares down at the note, and resignation overwhelms him. He crumples the note in his hand and breathes a deep sigh to stop himself from getting upset. 

They, his father and him, haven’t spoken properly for 7 years, or rather, since his mother’s disappearance. In some sick and twisted way, Aleks thinks that his father blames him for his mother’s disappearance, as if their relationship was anything but loving or, as if his mother would just up and leave, without telling either of them. Or without taking Aleks with her.

In the brief moments where Aleks and his father are in the house at the same time, the tension threatens to kill them both. 

If Aleks’ father is in a good mood, he’ll nod a good morning to Aleks or a “hey, how’s school goin’?” in a tone suggests that he’s not really that bothered anyway; never really listening to Aleks’ response, too busy cleaning his pistol or watching the game.

But, usually, it’s a cold and derisive stare from across the living room, or a tut when Aleks is in a good mood himself. Aleks wishes he could hate him. Wishes he could forget all about his father and skip town. But he can’t, or he won’t. He doesn’t really know.

Aleks’ eyes grow heavy at the wheel of the car. As an abundantly stupid decision maker, he’d elected to drive to school, figuring the 25-minute walk too much in his state, and especially in torrential rain. He had forgotten to call Trevor and let him know that they wouldn’t be meeting up before school, and he hoped to God that Trevor wouldn’t be waiting for him in this weather, although he knows full well that Trevor will, as Trevor does.

Black smoke billows out of the exhaust, Aleks neglecting to take it to the mechanic. He’d been waiting for 3 weeks, until his pay check came in, to do it and the longer he waited, the blacker it got.

Aleks’ eyes flick up to the rear-view mirror, and through the smog, he finds himself being watched. There’s a boy in the road, standing dead still, staring at him. His hair is dark, and long, and the tangles hide his face. He’s stood there, arms to his side, leering at Aleks through his lashes. A car is speeding towards him, and Aleks is waiting for him to move, and waiting for him to get out of the way. The car isn’t braking, and the boy isn’t moving.

Aleks screams an almighty No! when the car seemingly collides with the boy, and Aleks can’t watch, and he absentmindedly fights with his own steering wheel to keep from crashing the car, or to give his brain something else to think about even if it’s not entirely there.

But, there’s no collision. There’s no scraping of metal, there’s no screaming, there’s no sickening thud. 

A boy doesn’t get hit. Or rather, a boy was never there at all. 

Aleks takes his eyes off the rear view and looks towards the front of the car and realises suddenly that his car is hurtling towards a group of kids. 

He slams on the breaks; launching himself forward into the steering wheel and grinding his sternum against his belt, to avoid hitting the school kids on the crossing. A teenager, probably no younger than he is, gestures an angry middle finger at him, and all Aleks can do is breathe a sigh of relief that he didn’t just witness a fatal accident, nor cause one.

But, 

Why didn’t the boy move?

And why was he watching Aleks?

His hands are shaking against the wheel, and the wheel is gleaming with sweat, to the point of being slippery. Aleks realises, unglamorous, that he’s hyperventilating. His head is wet with perspiration, and he squints his eyes to stop the sweat from falling off his brow and into them.

The horn in the car behind him is booming, and Aleks looks to the rear view again, not hastily, to find an angry driver shaking their fist at him. Aleks watches the driver’s lips contort around the word move, and it seems like they’re moving in slow motion.

And a wave of nausea hits Aleks like a brick. 

He pulls down the interior mirror on the sun-blinder to check himself over, and his eyes are black to the lashes. His eyes are pitch-fucking-black. They flick down to the steering wheel, and 6-inch talons eat through the leather. Dried blood cakes around his cuticles. He tries to scream, and his mouth hangs open in silence, a tantalising victory for a night terror.

Because that’s what this is. It’s a night terror. Aleks realises it, unceremoniously, because he’s been having them for the past week, and all the signs are there.

Blackness, beady eyes, and that fucking boy. Every time, it’s the same boy, and he’s always watching. He hasn't taken his eyes off Aleks once.

When Aleks eventually convinces himself to open his eyes, he’s staring at the stains covering his bedroom ceiling. They’re a sickly, beige colour, and Aleks would prefer not to know what caused them. 

There’s a stain that looks like a dog that he’d discovered a few weeks after his mother’s disappearance, and it’d been the first thing to make him smile since. 

Since Aleks’ father had come home and tore the house apart looking for her. Aleks had hidden under his duvet, clutching a decade-old teddy his mother had gifted to him as an infant.

“It’s okay, Humphrey”, he’d whisper “There’s nothing to be afraid of”, and Humphrey’s big button eyes would stare back; completely empty, and Aleks would beg God, foolishly, not to see malice in them. Beg to find comfort in nothing. He’d hold Humphrey a little tighter and bury his head in the fur atop his head.

Aleks is covered in a cold sweat, and he turns his head in the wet patch on his pillow to look at the clock on the bedside table. It’s 6am, on the dot. The angry, red numbers glare at him. He closes his eyes, briefly and runs his hands along the duvet. The bile sitting in his stomach threatens to fly towards his throat when he reaches his crotch. There’s a familiar hill, holding the duvet up.

Aleks throws the duvet off, and races into the bathroom. He steps into the shower and turns the tap, not finding it in himself to care that the water is scalding where it hasn’t adjusted to the morning. He lets the water burn red on his chest and brace a hand against the tile. 

He traces the other hand down his chest, his abdomen, his hips and takes his cock in his hand. He takes it at the base and runs a slow hand along the shaft.

Long, dark hair; matted at the root. 

His strokes get faster, and his hips are jutting against the push and pull, and he fights damned hard to think about anything other than the boy. To think about Brett, and his strong muscles, and his thick thighs, and the things that he could do to Aleks. 

But he can’t. 

Black eyes; glistening as they watch him.

He moans, a _please_ stuttering out of his mouth against angry, gritted teeth. He reaches the head of his dick, and moves a thumb teasingly along the slit, and there he is. The boy, his face contorted in an ugly grin, teeth as sharp as nails, and he’s talking to Aleks, but Aleks can’t hear him. Aleks can barely fucking stand, the slick echoing around the room.

Aleks is pleading now; tears in his eyes, a chorus of _who are you? and what do you want?_

And the boy, he smiles, just, and whispers, faraway and distorted, and not quite there, “ **you** ”.

And Aleks’ back arches, his hips leaning forward into his hand, and he finishes against the tiles, stamping down a moan sitting in his throat. His cum slides down the tiles in a thick, white glob, and splats against the ceramic of the shower floor. 

The bile raises up into his throat now, and the saliva retreats in his mouth like the impending doom of a tsunami, and Aleks bends over and vomits. 

It’s not a lot, or barely any, since he hasn’t eaten a proper meal in days, but it exhausts him.

He reaches blindly for the edge of the tub for something to lean on, and sits down, resting his head against the tile. He watches the water wash the bile and cum down the drain, and wishes he was small enough to be washed away too.

He arrives late to school, too scared from his night terror to drive. Too scared that if he looks in the rear-view mirror, he’s gonna see something he doesn’t want to. His dad’s note sits crumpled and heavy in his coat pocket because the night terrors always get something right, otherwise they wouldn’t be terrors.

The group are waiting for him, leaning up against a row of lockers; enthralled in idle chatter. Lindsey’s holding a stack of books almost as tall as she is, Jakob is leaning with one arm against the lockers with Asher nuzzled in the space between them and Brett and Trevor are laughing about something unbeknownst to Aleks, because it always is.

Watching them, and feeling the dread he feels unbeknownst to them, he’s never felt more alone.

He walks towards them slowly, feeling weary and wary of missing a beat and tripping over a loose tile. Trevor sees him first, as is par for the course, and worry paints his face. 

He races towards Aleks, muttering at him, and asking if he’s okay but Aleks can’t really hear him. He’s too busy focussing on not falling over. 

Trevor walks him to the group, a hand under his arm like he’s a fucking geriatric trying to cross the road, and everyone’s watching him with guilty faces like perhaps they shouldn’t be.

“Hey, man”, Brett greets first with a look in his eye like he knows full well that Aleks wanted him to be the first to say something, and the bile wriggles in his tummy like it has a mind of its own, “you look like shit, are you okay?”

Aleks shrugs, not entirely sure if he can trust his mouth at the moment. Vomit threatens to rear its ugly head.

“You look like you haven’t slept in days'', Asher adds, half hiding behind Jakob’s body as if Aleks will lash out at him. Aleks wonders what they’ve been talking about for all of them to be walking on eggshells like this.

“Yeah”, Aleks nods, refusing to make eye contact with any of them, “I haven’t. Been having weird dreams, or nightmares, or whatever. I woke up this morning, and my room was filling up with water, and then I blinked, and it was gone. Or at least, I thought I woke up, but I was still asleep, apparently”, and then nobody speaks. Aleks waits for a response and doesn’t get one, and silence sits between them, and it weighs a tonne. 

Trevor squeezes through the group to his locker and slams the door open to create some noise, which, sort of, kickstarts them back into conversation, and Trevor side-eyes Aleks over his shoulder, a kind smile on his face. He reaches in to grab his Math textbook, and a smell wafts out of the locker that makes Aleks’ eyes water.

“Holy fuck, Trevor. That smells awful. Did you leave food in there over Halloween, or something?” and once again, Aleks is met with the 5 pairs of eyes, that feel like thousands, watching him; uneasy.

“Uh”, Trevor starts, “What are you talking about?”

And Aleks is more cautious with his words now. “Can’t you smell that? It smells like death—, like decay. Can’t you smell it?”, and he’s starting to panic, and five heads shake in response, like Cerberus guarding the gate to Hell. 

_No, you can’t come in. No, we don’t want you here._

“There’s no smell, Aleks”, Lindsey stage-whispers, some maternal part of her brain kicking in. Like she’s trying to end this tangent before Aleks hurts or embarrasses himself.

And Aleks vision goes stark-white, and his eyes burn like Cerberus let him in, and he’s staring directly into the blaze. 

He feels a warm, calloused hand grab his bicep, trying to keep him upright, before he plummets to the concrete. A faraway shout is the last thing he hears before his eyes go black. 

The boy is the last thing he sees.

* * *

He wakes up in the nurse’s office.

An older lady is leaning over him, wearing a navy pinafore with a watch clipped to her breast pocket. 

It ticks far too loudly for such a small watch. Her name badge, ironed onto the opposite breast, reads: Patricia. Her perfume reminds him of his mother. She breathes through her mouth onto his face and it smells like peppermint. Aleks breaths a long sigh through his nose, calm for the first time in a while.

She notices he’s awake, and jolts into action. 

“Mornin’ sweetheart—”, she starts, jovial. “Your lovely friends brought you here, sayin’ you fainted?”, and she’s asking a question she already knows the answer to, but Aleks gives her the satisfaction of a nod anyway. “How you feelin’ now?”

And Aleks can’t really tell. He’s got what feels like the remnants of a migraine, and he feels parched, but he figures she’s looking for something vague, so she can tick her checklist and send him on his way.

He clears his throat and says, “I feel fine, I think. Just have a bit of a headache”, and she puts a hand to his head, like a doting mother trying to rid a fever. 

“Do you mind if I take your temperature, honey?”, and Aleks nods, “Okay. Open your mouth and lift your tongue. I’m going to put the thermometer in, and when it’s in, you need to lower your tongue, okay?” and Aleks nods, again, and opens his mouth. 

Patricia puts the thermometer in his mouth and waits. She taps her foot against the linoleum of the nurse’s office and Aleks wonders why they chose that flooring, and figures perhaps he’d rather not know.

“Okay,” she says and Aleks lifts his tongue for her to take the thermometer out. “37°C, you’re right as rain!”, she exclaims, her smile wide on her face. “I’m goin’ to let you leave now, but if you start to feel woozy, or not quite right, you come see me, ya hear?”, and it’s more of a demand than a question. 

Aleks agrees and swings his legs over the edge of the bed to hop down. 

He makes for the door, but she stops him.

“Mister Marchant— “, she starts, and Aleks looks over to meet her eyes, “you got some good friends, you know that? I practically had to shepherd ‘em out of here. They were adamant on lookin’ after you. Make sure you remember that.”

Aleks nods, again, like the fucking dogs they put on trunks of cars. “Thanks, Patricia.”

“Oh, you doll. You can call me Patty.” She smiles wide, again. “Hope I don’t catch ya’ in here, again”, and Aleks waves a goodbye over his shoulder, not wanting her to see the tears in his eyes. 

Far too much like his mother for his own good.

Saturday morning comes quickly. After another fitful night’s sleep, Aleks can’t wait to be given something else to think about.

Saturday’s are coffee mornings for Trevor and Aleks. There’s a niche, cosy coffee spot in the centre of town that they’d elected to start going to a few years ago to spend quality best-friend time together. 

Like the name suggests, it was supposed to be coffee mornings, but they both realised, rather quickly, that getting up before 11am was a no-go, so now it’s like coffee brunch without the food.

Aleks walks in, the bell jingling over his head, and veers right to their favourite spot; a corner booth fit for two with a window view. He usually arrives anywhere between 10 to 30 minutes earlier than Trevor, with Trevor usually falling through the door looking like he rushed to get dressed.

He takes a seat and positions a pillow behind his back, so he can lean back a little without fully reclining. He shoots a smile to the barista, a cute 20-something year old that Aleks has had a crush on for, well, the entire time they’ve been coming. His name is Mark, or at least that’s what the tag says. 

He daren’t speak to him, though; only admire from afar.

The bell jingles, and Aleks watches Mark smile towards the door so he figures it must be Trevor. He hears him breathing, heavily, before he sees him. 

Trevor veers around the corner, cheeks flushed red, and with a lopsided grin on his face. Aleks stands to greet him and kisses his cheek to say hello.

Aleks gestures for Trevor to sit opposite him and raises two fingers to Mark, asking for 2 of their regulars. Mark shoots Aleks a coy grin and turns to the coffee machine. Aleks looks back towards Trevor and grins.

“Morning, bud. 30 minutes early. For you, at least” and Trevor nods, ecstatic.

“I know, I can’t believe it. I did have to run—”

“I can tell”.

“—But I made it, actually on time!” and he’s beaming ear-to-ear.

“Have you eaten?”, Aleks asks, now the doting mother, and Trevor nods.

“Yep! Had scrambled eggs, pretty yummy. A little on the squeaky side, but whatever. Have you?”, and he talks like he’s 10 years younger than he is. He’s shaking in his chair like he’s going to explode from all the energy he has.

Aleks nods, even though he hasn’t eaten. He doesn’t need Trevor worrying. He’ll eat later. “Okay, well I ordered two hot chocolates, so you better have room in there for that”, and Trevor makes a face, like Aleks is stupid for even suggesting that Trevor’s full enough to not enjoy hot chocolate. 

“Did you get marshmallows?”, and Aleks nods.

“Don’t I always?”

Mark calls their names from the counter and Aleks gets up to get it. Mark smiles, tongue between his teeth, as Aleks takes the drinks from him. He slides the bill to Aleks, his number printed neatly at the bottom, and Aleks offers a shy smile, folding up the paper and putting it in his coat pocket.

He brings them back to the table. His hands jitter, and he watches the liquid slosh over the lip of the mug and onto the saucer. He takes the one that spilled the most, to be selfless but also to stop Trevor asking questions.

“So, Mom was at work last night; she was on the night shift again, which is pretty sucky because I never see her anymore—”, and Aleks lets Trevor babble, like this is a well-rehearsed pantomime. 

Because this is what coffee “mornings” are, a chance for Trevor to ramble nonsensically and a chance for Aleks to people-watch instead, and only pretend he’s listening, tuning in and out whenever he hears a buzzword, like Trevor’s trying to interest him in conversation.

“Like, why does she keep taking the night shift? I know it’s better money, but she’s got kids to look after, and it’s not like Dad’s got the time either”—, and Aleks sees him. 

A figure out of the corner of his eye. He’s standing across the street, outside a liquor store, and he’s watching Aleks. 

He daren’t look, not now, although he figures the boy knows he’s sort of looking, even if it’s only out of his peripheral vision. 

“Trevor— “, and like the angel he is, Trevor stops rambling in his tracks, knowing full well that Aleks wasn’t listening anyway, but being polite enough to listen when Aleks wants to talk.

“Yeah? What is it?”, he asks, eyes wide.

“You see that guy out there, across the street?”, Aleks asks, gesturing with his eyes, “do you recognise him?” and Trevor shakes his head, and the bile grins like the monster it is. “You haven’t seen him at school or anything?” and Trevor shakes his head again. 

“Uh, nope. Not sure I’d remember if I did, anyway. Why?” and Aleks shakes his head, and Trevor doesn’t dig, because Trevor never does, and Aleks figures that Trevor can see the mania in his eyes, threatening to lunge at any second.

“Anyway”, Aleks changes the subject, not wanting to talk about things he doesn’t understand anymore, “what were you saying?”

“Oh, yeah!”, and Trevor sits forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the tabletop and his chin on his hands, “Mom was at work, and it was like, 2am, and the sheriff came in—, and your dad was there—“, and Aleks is listening now, “and she said they brought this body in. Wheeled it in on a gurney, and she said it was mangled to shit. Practically indistinguishable”, and Aleks turns his head to the boy.

And the boy’s mouth ticks up on one side.

“She said they think it was an animal, but she’s not sure”. 

“Do they know who it was?”

And Trevor shakes his head, “she says no, but I don’t think she’d tell me anyway”, and Aleks tips his head down, chin to chest. “They’re calling in people to see if they can identify it, but with how she described it, I don’t think they have much luck”, and a drop of sweat drips down Aleks’ neck and soaks into the collar of his shirt. 

“I have to go”, Aleks announces, voice shaking in his throat, “Are you going to be okay here by yourself?” and Trevor frowns, but nods anyway. 

“Are you okay?” 

And Aleks nods, practically jolting out of his chair, and hits his knee against the corner of the table, sloshing his own hot chocolate further over the lip of the cup, and now onto the table. It steams against the wood. Mark ought to wipe it up, otherwise it’ll stain.

He offers Trevor a pat on the shoulder, waves a hasty goodbye to Mark, and pulls the door open. It hits against the back of the frame, and the bell jingles loudly above his head.

ABC News blares from the television set in the living room. His dad lay resting on the couch, his police uniform draped over the back. Aleks closes the door quietly, not wanting to wake his dad if he’s asleep, and he reaches into his pocket for the door key to lock it.

He catches his finger on the coffee shop receipt and he pulls his hand out of his pocket to see blood pooling on his finger tip. He puts his finger to his mouth and sucks it clean, the taste of iron sitting on the back of his tongue.

He stands in the vestibule, or just outside it, hesitating to go into the main part of the house. He doesn’t really want to talk to his father, especially after the shift he had. Especially after the shit he supposedly saw last night. 

“Aleksandr?”, his father calls, his speech muffled by the cigarette sitting against his lip; smoke swelling out of his mouth like a chimney, “is that you?” and Aleks takes a step forward, the floorboard creaking under his boots. 

His father turns his head and greets Aleks with a nod of his head. 

“Hey”, Aleks greets, voice feeling raw, “what’s up?”

And Aleks’ father chuckles humourlessly, “Nothing much. Just resting up before my shift tonight”, and Aleks’ body swells with rage. 

“What time did you finish this morning?”

“7-ish. Sometime around there”, his father shrugs.

“And they want you to work tonight as well? That’s fucking bullshit”, and he stamps his feet like a petulant child, the strain of whatever the fuck is going on getting to him.

“Gotta make money, son. Not like you’re doin’ it”, and Aleks deflates, as it usually goes in conversations with his father.

“I’m going to my room”, he announces, “let me know when you’re leaving”, and he takes the first step on the stairs, mud from his boots coating the carpet. He only just hears his father’s voice over the set.

“Did ya hear that lady’s missing?”

And Aleks stops, and tilts his head slightly, brows furrowed, as if he can’t really hear his dad, and as if tilting his head will help him understand. He takes a step back down, levelling himself on the hallway, standing at the foot of the stairs, looking up into blackness. “What lady?”

“Lady at your school. That nurse? Just saw an appeal on her. Probably the same sick fuck that took your ma’”, and Aleks braces his hands against his knees, suddenly feeling lightheaded. His pulse is beating loudly in his ears, and things start to sway in his vision. 

He looks up through his lashes to the stairs, where the boy is sitting. He stinks; like salt and mud and wet. 

He offers a smile and outstretches a hand. Aleks reaches out to touch him, and their fingers graze against each other, and his hand is ice cold. Aleks pulls his hand away and looks down to his fingers, where a coat of slime sits between them like webbing.

He looks back to the boy.

Only the boy is gone, and a wet patch is left on the stairs where he was sat.


	4. Chapter Three

30th November 1986

The body bobs on the water; a melting marshmallow swimming on the surface of a hot chocolate. The sickly-sweet smell of rot sits along the bank, like it has done many times before. The body lays face down; its once-beige slacks clinging to the back of its legs. A webbing of blue and yellow paint its back. 

The body bumps against the pier. A slow bass drum in an intro song. 

* * *

Compulsion is a strange thing. 

Aleks stirs, no later than 1am, to an ache in the back of his head. He’d gone to sleep with a faraway dullness and had awoken to it pulsing. He grits his teeth in a vain attempt to deal with it, but it only makes it worse. He feels breathless, like he’s drowning. 

He feels an itch. An insatiable itch over his whole body. He feels a pull. It wants to drag him out of bed. It wants him down the stairs. It wants him to move. He supposes in a matter of necessity, in quelling the pull, he’ll give it what it wants. 

He shuffles his duvet down his legs, and bunches it at the bottom of the bed. It smells musty, the familiar smell of teenage hormones left to dry. 

Aleks reaches, his hand shaking, for his boxers and jolts away in shame, like he’s been burnt, when his fingers touch a wet patch. A wet patch that has become all too familiar over the last month. 

He stands up, legs feeling like jelly, and pulls his boxers down to his ankles. He kicks them off, picks them up off the floor, and stuffs them in the hamper as far down as they’ll go. Like he needs his father knowing about his wet dreams. Like he needs his father asking about girls.

He walks towards his wardrobe, moonlight leading the way across the minefield, and grabs the first pair of trousers he can find. They’re old, tattered and ill-fitting. He pulls them up and grimaces when the denim brushes against his sensitive head. He pulls his favourite jumper out of his wardrobe next; it’s a dirty yellow and knitted, a birthday gift from his mother. The hanger that it came from swings, to-and-fro, in its absence. 

He pulls it on over his head. His hair sits flat against his forehead. He hopes he’ll be warm enough, but if he isn’t, so be it. 

Compulsion doesn’t care.

He makes his way downstairs to see his father asleep with his head hanging off the back of the couch, a burnt-out cigarette hanging limply from between his teeth. 

Aleks shakes his head in dismay, surprised the house hasn’t set ablaze yet. He walks towards the kitchen and jimmies open a rarely used drawer. It holds many knick-knacks and trinkets, one very important knick-knack being the keys to his father’s old Mustang. His, used-to-be, pride and joy. It’s been sitting in front of the house, left to rust, and Aleks doubts that his father will ever use it again. 

The backseat holds too many fruitful memories for his father to bear to look at. Too many late nights in school car parks, burning hands trailing over eager skin. 

No, Aleks knows it’ll never be used again.

Aleks grabs his boots from the backdoor and slides them on. They feel damp and Aleks can’t work out if they’re wet, or just cold. 

He walks across the house and leaves through the front door, closing it quietly behind him. He watches his reflection in the car door. 

In a rather unsettling conclusion, he realises that he barely recognises himself. His once youthful face turned 20 years older in the moonlight. His forehead holding wrinkles he didn’t have last week. His face dragging with stress.

He swings the car door open and gets into the car. When he closes the door, he tries not to slam, but his jittery fingers lose grip of the handle and it slams closed anyway.

When he turns the key and starts the ignition, the car judders, like it hasn’t felt the warmth of a human in so long, it has no idea what to do with it. The headlights flicker to life. He puts the car in gear and moves off, neglecting to put on a seat belt. 

The drive to the lake should take a half hour, or perhaps 45 in bad weather, but Aleks has the pedal to the floor; the back wheels just shy of spinning out, kicking up dust from a road rarely visited, and makes it in 20.

He turns into the lake. He pulls in slowly and parks across three bays, or what used to be bays, not really giving a fuck about parking etiquette. It is abandoned, after all. 

Everyone else at home and safe in their beds. Not being haunted by, whatever. Whatever it is. Whatever it wants.

He turns the key and switches the car off. He watches the water from behind the windshield, squinting against the darkness. 

And there.

A disturbance; a head breaks the surface. He’s seen this in a dream. A sick sense of Deja-vu envelops him, like a humid day in the summer; like he’s stripped to the bone but can’t seem to cool down.

The pull asks him out of the car. 

He moves slowly, his fingers a vice-grip on the handle. Something opens the car. Something, but not him. 

Compulsion is dangerous. What would it ask of him next? 

The angel begs him to leave, the devil tells him to take a step closer. His body is treacherous, and he moves.

It speaks. Whatever it is, it’s too far away for Aleks to hear what it said. Aleks wishes he was frozen in shock because, perhaps if he had been, he wouldn’t have taken a step closer to the water. 

The pebbles under his feet falter, and his arms fly out to his sides to balance him. It smiles, and the bubbles around it float to the surface, like the water is laughing at him too.

He steadies himself, his feet buried in the stones, and it stares. Aleks feels stripped raw, inhuman. Like his body isn’t his, like he’s sat above himself, watching like an audience in an opera house waiting for the climax; wide eyes leaning forward in their seats like they’d rather fall out and over the rail than miss the final note. 

The water sits undisturbed despite the disturbance in it. 

“Why am I here?” Aleks whispers, his throat catching on the last word. Aleks feels flustered, and angry that he’s flustered. His body thrums with rage.

“ **Why are you here**?” It responds, voice gravelly, and smooth at the same time. Languid, calm. 

The hair on Aleks’ neck stands tall, and he suppresses a shiver of dread, or at least he hopes. It’s 50 feet away, so why does it sound like it’s stood right behind Aleks? Like it's talking right into his ear. 

He supposes the jumper wasn’t enough to keep him warm, because he’s shivering. His teeth are chattering with such force, he’s afraid they’re going to fall out of his head. 

“ **Are you cold**?” It asks, again, voice warm. Aleks shakes, with both chill and fury.

“Why did you bring me here?” He asks, exhaustion an abusive grip around his neck.

“ **Did I bring you here? Or did you bring you here**?” It teases, a deviant smirk sat across its cheeks. 

Aleks feels rage swell like an ever-expanding balloon. It doesn’t pop, it doesn’t pop. He sees red, but his body won’t move.

“Tell me”, he grits his teeth, “what the fuck you want with me”. It’s an order, not a question. Aleks is sick and fucking tired of this. 

And then, like the angel sat atop his shoulder whispers—

Over there. Look.

And Aleks looks. Just quickly. A spot of white colours his vision. Something is under the pier. It floats, brushing the bank every other wave. 

The balloon pops. 

Aleks moves his feet out from under the pebbles, a trickle of stones fall and land in a heap, and marches over to the pier. He braces himself on it and reaches under to grab for it. He stands up and looks at the item in his hands. 

It’s an old baseball cap, misshapen from the water. It’s an off white and bears the insignia of some kind of fish on its front. Water drips from the brim and soaks across the top of Aleks’ boots. He thanks himself lucky that he didn’t wear sneakers.

Aleks wrings it out, hitting it against his thigh a few times to dry it out. The air around him seems close, and muggy. Sweat forms along his hairline, and he uses his sleeve to wipe it away.

He turns on his heel and heads back towards the car. His hand reaches for the door, and his fingers freeze.

“ **Don’t** ”, it orders. Or pleads. 

“Why not?” Aleks asks, not facing the water. He watches his reflection in the window, too terrified to look anywhere else. He watches fear creep onto his face, his jowls hanging like the fear has aged him another 20 years. Like he’s a haggard old man, haunted by a ghost in his own head. He can go nowhere without it.

It doesn’t answer. Aleks’ fingers bend at the knuckles, and blood flows like white water. He takes the reprieve as a sign and wrenches the door open. He throws the hat onto the passenger seat and gets in the car. When he looks at the water, it’s flat. 

Verklempt sits in Aleks throat. He doesn’t understand why.

* * *

Autumn's curtain closes, and leaves the stage open for winter to slink its way in. Aleks’ hugs a knitted jumper in his fists in naïve effort to keep himself warm on the walk to the coffee shop. His winter coat, undone at the waist, flaps against his legs in the wind. He left his scarf and gloves on the microwave and wasn’t willing to walk dirty boots through the house to go get them. 

Cold be damned, at least he’s not doing chores.

He knows he’s late. He knows better than to let Trevor arrive before him, knows better than to leave Trevor waiting for him, knows he’ll never hear the last of it. 

He rounds a corner quickly, and slips on the ice forming on the sidewalk, very nearly falling flat on his ass. A hand under his armpit keeps him upright, but when he looks over to say thank you, there’s no one there. Aleks feels that familiar panic ebbing along the back of his neck and decides to ignore it. 

Just for now. Just for Saturday Coffee Time. Can’t he have a minute’s rest? 

He pushes the coffee shop’s door open, the bell jingling over his head, and takes note of two things. 

One: Mark, the barista, isn’t there to greet him, and two: Trevor isn’t alone. He turns and walks towards the booth, sliding in next to Asher. 

He takes one look and thinks it’d be better not to mention the fact that it’s supposed to be just Trevor and him, considering the look on Asher’s face. The skin around his eyes is blotchy, and his nose is red and swollen. Aleks raises an eyebrow in Trevor’s direction, who only challenges the look with two raised eyebrows, disappointment sitting heavy in his features.

“You’re late”, he announces, in supposed lieu of a greeting.

Aleks scoffs rudely. “As if you’re ever on time”.

“You’ve come to expect my lateness, Aleksandr”, he says matter of fact, mirth brewing in his eyes, “but you? This is—, well, I’m speechless. What would our dear Mark think?”

“Well, I’m sure he’d have something more constructive to say”, Aleks grins, “speaking of, where is he?” 

Trevor shrugs. “Fuck knows. Wasn’t here when we got here”, he replies, gesturing with his brows to Asher. “We’ve been here for, like, 15 minutes?”, and Asher nods, “He hasn’t left or showed up in that time”, he checks the watch on his wrist, “this is his shift, right?”

Aleks raises his eyebrows. “What, you got his schedule memorised? He your boyfriend, or something?” But the friendly banter is cut short by a loud and dramatic sniffle to Aleks’ right. He watches Asher rub his nose in his periphery, and frowns in concern.

“Hey, man”, he says, lightly nudging Asher with his shoulder, “are you alright?”. He watches Asher’s lip tremble and wishes he hadn’t said anything. He looks to Trevor helplessly as Asher sinks further into his seat, tears spilling down his cheeks.

“Him and Jakob are having a tiff”, Trevor says, tiredly. “I’ve been hearing about it for the last 3 hours, and as much as I love them both, I’ve about had it. So, if you wanna take over, I’m gonna try and charm our more appropriately sexually aligned barista”. He smiles, cheekily, the action digging into his cheek like he’s a 12-year-old about to do something he shouldn’t.

Aleks rolls his eyes and shucks off his winter coat, starting to get a little too warm for his liking. He rolls his jumper sleeves up, so they don’t dangle over his hands and folds his arms over his chest, leaning back against the seat to try and make Asher feel more comfortable, as he obviously isn’t feeling particularly comfort-inclined right now.

“So”, he starts, “what happened?”. No holds barred.

Asher’s breath comes out in small increments, like he’s afraid if he breathes out then everything is going to come out in one fell swoop, and he has an iota more control than that, or at least the semblance of more control. “I—”, he starts, and exhales slowly, “I don’t—, uh, I don’t think Jakob loves me, anymore. Or ever did. Or—, I don’t know”.

“What?” Aleks sputters, astounded that the idiot would say such a thing, “why the fuck would you think that? Haven’t you been together since, like, the Big Bang?”

Asher huffs a laugh, despite himself. “Sure feels like it, sometimes”, and he talks as if he’s a marred old woman, talking of her military husband who just doesn’t have the love for her he had before the war. “He just doesn’t want to fuck anymore, it seems like. We haven’t fucked in a while. Well”, he huffs again, humourlessly this time, “13 days to be exact, and—is that a dry spell? How many days is considered a dry spell? Whatever, nearly two weeks. Two weeks! Do you know what that feels like? I’ve had to sneak into the bathroom like three times a day—”

Aleks holds a hand up, hoping that Asher will stop for just one second. He feels as if his brain might’ve shut off in the middle of Asher’s rant to protect itself, because he can’t recall much of what was said. He goes for the easy response, not really knowing what else to say. Not really having the experience to offer anything besides, “have you spoken to him? Communication is important, y’know?”

“Yeah”, he smiles, sadly, “that’s what Trevor said. Well, with a few more fucks thrown in the longer the conversation went on for”, he smiles for real this time. Lovingly, Aleks’ supposes, and it strikes him how lucky he is to have a friend like Asher. A friend who can love so unconditionally, and Aleks feels a strong urge to protect him. 

“Any guy’d be lucky to have ya, and I’ll kick Jakob’s ass if he disagrees with me”, and Asher laughs, wetly, eyes glassy with unfallen tears.

“Three hot chocolates, piping hot and coming through!” Trevor announces, placing a round tray on which rests three large hot chocolates, one with marshmallows, onto the table. He hands a napkin to Aleks and Asher before taking one for himself and tucking it into his collar, raising his eyebrows in a challenge when Aleks shoots him a look. “This is a new shirt, I’m not ruining it with chocolatey deliciousness, okay?” 

Aleks holds both his hands up in surrender, not willing to have an argument over the semantics of when you should and when you should not tuck a napkin into the collar of your shirt. He can’t be bothered, and besides, he’ll lose anyway. He always does. Trevor’s the little sibling you always let win lest you want a tantrum of epic proportions. It just ain’t worth it.

“You feelin’ okay, now?” Trevor asks in Asher’s direction, not really willing to take no for an answer after his whirlwind of a morning with Bette fucking Davis. Asher nods and Trevor smiles wide, despite himself. “Good, glad to hear it. And now”, he gestures to Aleks, “my next appointment. Aleksandr Marchant, how have you been since our last session?”

Aleks very narrowly misses when he throws his soiled napkin in Trevor’s general vicinity. “Shaddap, ya fucking mook. Who do you think you are?” and Trevor shrugs, falling back against the reclining booth like the spoilt brat he is.

“Well, you ran outta here like a spooked colt last week. I’m not stupid for askin’”, and Aleks feels guilty for lashing out, even if he was only partially serious. He briefly considers mentioning The Incident from earlier in the week, but figures Trevor and Asher have both got enough of their plates to feed them for a lifetime. It wouldn’t be fair to load them up higher. Besides, a sick and childish side of him almost doesn’t want to share. He wants the trauma all to himself.

“I’ve been fine, if you must know”, he offers, his tone suggesting that he’s not willing to elaborate. 

Trevor lifts the corner of his mouth in slight disappointment, not wanting to push Aleks. “You sure? I charge way less than your average therapist, and I don’t take August off.”

Aleks guffaws, “Bullshit you don’t take August off! As if your ma hasn’t got you scrubbing the floors all summer, so she can go get her nails done at the salon.” 

“She got you working Christmas to?” Asher chips in, finally. The warmth sits heavy in his voice and Aleks feels his mood lift at the development.

“Nah, man. We’re devout Catholics.”

“Sanctimonious, you mean”, and Trevor swats him across the table.

“Ey! Just because you haven’t found the Lord.”

“Yeah, I’m sure the Lord’ll be real happy that I’m taking it up the ass”, and Asher chimes in with a “make that two of us!”

“Anyway!”, Trevor begins again, loud enough to drown out both Aleks and Asher, “we spend most of our time in the church over Christmas, so I haven’t got to get my hands dirty once.”

“Bet you’re the only one who won’t.”

“Fuck off”.

“Yeah, bet you’re the only heterosexual in the place.”

“I said, fuck off, the both of you!”

* * *

The hat is sat on a chair in the corner of his room. It’s sodden, still, and staining a patch into the upholstery. Aleks has no idea how long it’d been sitting in the lake, collecting water and dirt. 

He watches it from his bed, just in case it tries anything. Who knows these days, maybe there’s sentient headwear wandering around? Maybe said headwear is in Aleks’ possession now and it’s going to try and suffocate him in his sleep. 

Good fucking luck, hat. It’s Sleep with One Eye Open from here on out. 

As if sleep is happening at all, anymore.

He considers telling someone. Telling someone what, he doesn’t know. 

Hey, Trevor, I found a hat in the lake.

Hey, Asher, I found a hat and I think it’s suspicious. 

Hey, Lindsay, I found a hat and I think it belongs to the missing fisherman, and no, I haven’t done my Lit homework yet. I’m a little busy, can’t you see?

He feels like he’s losing it. He feels like he’s spilled the whole bag of fucking marbles and he’s fumbling all over the floor trying to stop them from rolling away. Maybe he had no marbles to begin with. Maybe he should stop talking in stupid, cliché metaphors and just accept the fact that something is not quite right. Maybe it’s him that’s not quite right, or maybe it’s something else. But it’s something. And it’s not fair to make him go through it alone.

He leans over, cautiously, his eyes still trained on the hat, and reaches for the landline sitting heavy on his bedside table. He picks up the receiver, the dial tone ringing loudly in his ear. 

Thank fuck he doesn’t have tinnitus, or this’d really be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

He dials, and he waits. Someone picks up the other line, the plastic fumbling as Asher, presumably tries to bring the receiver to his ear. There’s a lot of ruckus going on and Aleks can’t really make heads or tails of it. Until he can. 

“H—, hello?” Asher says, breathily, air stuttering around the greeting.

“Um—, hello. It’s me. Are you free?” He asks, knowing full-well that the answer is obviously no, the tell-tale sound of the headboard hitting the wall in a savage rhythm.

“Yeah, what’s—, don’t—, baby, keep goin—going”, and Aleks rolls his eyes heavenward. He can’t believe his life anymore. 

“Well, it sure sounds like you’re busy, man. I’ll call you back later”, but Asher will not give up the ghost, God love him. Or, well, probably not right this minute. Maybe in 15 minutes, but certainly not now. Fuck knows how many Hail Mary’s he’d need before God could love him right now. 

“No—, hnnnngg, oh, shit—, are you—, oh, fuck, Jakob—, are you ok—?” He’s trying, bless him. 13 days must be a long time.

Aleks opens his mouth to reply, but the plastic fumbles again, this time Jakob’s voice is on the line, clear as a bell, and Aleks cracks a smile at Asher’s muffled whining for the phone back in the background. “He’ll call you back”, he says, unremarkably, not leaving room for any argument. The phone is hung up on their end and the dial-tone thrums, again, in Aleks’ ear.

He stares at the receiver, somewhat in disbelief. He briefly considers phoning Trevor, but after his, apparently successful, flirting with the female barista at the coffee shop, he’s not sure he’s ready for another audio-based pornographic experience.

So, he decides against it. He decides against his better judgement to tell his dad. Besides, if this is what he thinks it is, he doesn’t want to be in the clink for perverting the course of justice by harbouring evidence, especially as the deputy sheriff’s son.

He inhales and holds the breath in his lungs until it burns. Just to ground him. That’s all. Telling his dad is the right thing to do, right?

He unfolds his legs from his position on the bed and crawls over to the edge, swinging his somewhat-numb feet over the edge and placing them on the floor. He curls his toes around the decade-old carpet, just for the little bit of comfort it provides. 

He stands, walking hesitantly over to the chair, and reaches for the hat. He doesn’t understand how it’s still wet. It’s been a week. 

How long is material supposed to retain liquid?

Maybe it is alive, after all.

He walks down the stairs, purposefully stepping on all the creaky ones so his dad knows he’s coming. He should be awake. He should’ve woken up over an hour ago. Aleks hopes he’s well-rested, not wanting to catch him in a bad mood, especially with something this presumably delicate.

“Hey, dad?” He calls around the banister of the stairs. His father is sitting on the couch, his typical cigarette hanging limply from the end of his lips. He doesn’t even look like he’s smoking it, he looks like he’s using it for decoration. Like the greaser’s did. Wanting the look but not wanting the lung cancer. That’s admirable, he supposes. At least they weren’t as stupid as they looked.

“What’s that in your hand?” Hook, line and sinker. 

“I found it”, he confesses, like he’s a boy, again. Like he’s being scolded for digging in the garden, mud under his fingernails and muddy footprints going up the stairs. God, his father had gone ballistic. Ranting and raving about having to bathe his son, again. What would his mother have said, huh? The welt on his cheek had answered the answer he’d responded with.

You’d have to find her first.

“Found it where?” He digs, patience already wearing thin. Long nights, teenage sons. Drive anybody mad.

“The lake.” And his father’s eyes widen. First with surprise, then with anger.

“What the fuck have you been doing down at the lake? You know you’re not supposed to be down there!”

“Since when?” Responding with anger, naturally. You’re just like your father.

“Since I fucking said so. Gimme that!” His nails bite into Aleks’ hand as he snatches the hat from his grasp. Aleks figures he’s already in the hole, why not go 6 deep?

“Is it Larry’s?”

The sharp pain that travels across his cheek doesn’t feel well-deserved this time.

“Go to your room.” And Aleks doesn’t argue. Isn’t willing to sport a bruise on the other side.

He turns on his tail, wiping a stray tear away as he wanders up the stairs. He quickens his pace, taking two steps at a time, when he hears the landline ringing.

“Hello?” He answers, clearing his throat of any emotion that his friends are bound to hear.

“It was the nurse”, Trevor’s voice travels, tinny, through the line. Aleks frowns. 

“What?”

“Remember last week at the coffee shop? I was telling you my mom was working the night shift, had some fucked-up shit come in?”

And Aleks thinks that vaguely rings a bell. “Fucked up shit?” He inquires, needing Trevor to elaborate so he can be brought up to speed.

Trevor groans, obviously frustrated. “They brought a body in! Two weeks ago, early hours of the morning, the police brought a body to the hospital. It was all mangled and shit”, and Aleks definitely remembers now. He hums in response, urging Trevor to go on. 

“It was the nurse. From school.” 

And Aleks’ ears are ringing now, for real. Maybe he has developed tinnitus in the time it took to climb the stairs and answer the phone. Trevor’s voice sounds far away when he says her name. “Patricia, she’s the one who saw you right?” and Aleks nods, even though Trevor can’t see him. 

He’s not sure he could manage words. He swallows, the lump in his throat tight. He’s finding it hard to breath. 

She smelt like his mother.

“Aleks?” He says, his voice clipped like it’s not the first time he’s said it.

“Do they know who did it?” He can’t manage much else. It’s all he wants to know. He doesn’t want to know who she left behind, or how old she was, or who’s gonna feed her cats. He just wants to know who did it.

“No.”

There’s a sick feeling in his belly. It feels acidic, like it’s rotting his gut as they speak. He has a feeling that he does know who did it. He has a feeling that the body might’ve been dripping wet when it was brought in. He has a feeling the cotton of her uniform might still be a little damp.


	5. Chapter Four

30th November 1986

Migration. The body, its decaying cotton still clinging tight, sits along the bank, now, the water just brushing its wrinkled toes. The nails lift after every rush, their beds no longer home. The body is losing colour, once a salmon pink now a greying bloom. Eyes glasses, a plea sitting like snow in a globe, unshaken.

* * *

There’s a wooden slat with a splinter in it. The bed’s not that old. 

Or, well. Okay. It’s probably as old as Aleks is but he’s not that old. This side of 20. A bed should last longer than that, right? He wonders if there’s a guarantee lying around somewhere. Do they offer compensation for when wood splinters? It won’t be long until it bows, and then probably cracks. 

Aleks will soak through the mattress and with no slats to protect him, he'll nosedive into the kitchen below his bedroom. Maybe he’ll keep going. Maybe the cement beneath the house will form a sinkhole and he’ll just keep falling and falling. Maybe he’ll reach Hell. Hell, maybe he’ll reach China. 

Bet that’d be confusing for a few people. For him to pop out in Beijing, out from under a manhole cover like a mole.

The slat has a splinter. The slat will crack.

Aleks runs his finger along the imperfection. He presses hard, his fingertip turning white. The capillaries retreating from the beach in the anticipation for a tsunami. He pulls his finger away and beet-red blood pools on the tip like a crown. 

Now he has a splinter. Where’s the crack?

“ **What are you doing?** ” There it is.

“Shit!” Aleks whirls up in surprise and hits his head against the underside of his bed. “Jesus! Fuck!”. And then he looks.

He’d imagined being in his room with The Boy but not exactly like this. The room smells damp. 

Humphrey watches with his beady-black eyes.

“ **Why are we under your bed**?”

“Oh, apology fucking accepted.” He grimaces, rubbing the heel of his hand against his pulsing forehead, mortified.

And The Boy wears a troubled frown, his olive-ish skin bunching between his eyebrows. Aleks swallows around the admiration aching to crawl out of his mouth in the form of something embarrassing. “Why are you under my bed?”

“ **I asked you first** ”, and Aleks almost thinks he’s trying not to laugh.

“My school nurse is dead. I’m hiding under the bed until it stops being true.”

“ **I think you might be under here for a while** ”, a soft smile sits in the corner of his mouth, and Aleks pulls his bottom lip into his mouth and clamps his teeth over it, desperate to lunge forward and kiss that pitiful smile off the idiot’s face. What, is wanting to kiss your imaginary friend weird now? 

Who makes the rules for that shit anyway? His marbles are long gone.

“Was it you?” His tongue runs along his lip, a nervous tick he’s developed. An oral fixation, perhaps. Ask Freud.

“ **You look skinny**.” His eyes are steady. Dark. Almost black.

“I’m not eating. Answer me”.

“ **Why not**?”

“Because everyone around me is either going missing or dying brutally. Did you fucking kill her?”

“ **No**.” Resolutely. No room for argument. His eyes are sincere.

Dread sits, stagnant. If not him, who?

“ **How long have you been under here**?”

Aleks looks to him, his wide, dark, caring eyes. “What time is it?”

Aleks watches him roll out from under the bed and look over the frame to see the alarm clock. Aleks watches his t-shirt ride up to reveal a stripe of tummy. Skin folds over itself along his hips as he leans awkwardly, stretching his neck over the mattress. Dark hair travels, hidden, under his waistband. His skin is slightly blue, like the type of blue that your body turns when the bath water turns the colder side of lukewarm and you've been in there too long.

Aleks extends a hand to touch him but reels back as if he’s been burnt when The Boy’s face comes into view again. His heart beats fast in his chest. If he looks down, he could probably see it trying to beat out of his shirt.

Aleks watches him, again, situate himself back down under the bed, resting himself on his elbows to stare down at Aleks. He forces himself to look away. Too much of this staring business.

“ **It’s 10:30** ”.

“AM or PM?”

“ **It’s dark out so I’m going to assume evening. Which would be worse?** ”

Aleks swallows, “well, if it was morning, I’d have been under here all night.”

“ **As opposed to all day.** ” The Boy replies, dry.

Aleks huffs, humourlessly. His imaginary friend judging him? Fuck off. “Yeah, I guess.” His teeth are clenched hard and his response comes out quiet, mumbled.

“ **Your finger’s still bleeding** ”, he announces, and Aleks is in the middle of replying with something scathing and sardonic when The Boy reaches for his hand. 

He brings Aleks’ finger to his mouth and licks a long stripe to the tip, catching the blood that had started to sink into his knuckles. He finishes his feast with an ever-so-slight pop on the tip of his finger and lets Aleks pull his hand back.

Aleks can see his own blood on The Boy’s lips and can’t work if he should feel disgusted that The Boy just sucked his blood like some wannabe cannibal, or disgusted that he wants to kiss his own blood for his lips.

The throbbing in his underwear doesn’t seem to care for the semantics. The Boy’s eyes become impossibly darker, the pupils eating away at any colour that once lived there.

Aleks closes his eyes in a bid to calm himself down, and when he opens them again, The Boy is gone.

* * *

“This is the last time I’m doing it,” Lindsey slides a piece of paper across the table, speaking with quiet resignation, scorning like the mother she pretends to be, “I’m not sure you’ve ever done a piece of homework in your life”. 

She closes the mile-high binder the homework came from and heaves it into her backpack with a groan.

Aleks thanks her with a smug grin. “Why would I, when I have you?” Her hand rears up to strike him, a mock-offended look on her face, but the bark of their insipid literature teacher stalls her in her tracks.

“Miss Washburn, I trust you’re not misbehaving?” And Lindsey cowers under his smiting gaze.

Aleks looks to his desk, feeling the eyes in the room on him. He hates being the centre of attention. 

Frankly, he can’t think of anything worse, hence why he made Lindsey sit in the back corner, and further cementing his theory that Mr Wilson is watching Lindsey constantly, the creepy fuck. How else would he be able to see what she was doing over 30 other heads? Why would he care? This is high school, and it’s not AP. He doubts a single head in this room wants to be in attendance, bar Lindsey of course, who’ll take any ounce of free education she can get

Aleks shoots her a contrite smile, feeling guilty that he got her into trouble. She winks. A troublemaker despite herself.

Aleks opens his notebook, pulls the pen from behind his ear, uncaps it and lays it along the open spine, fully intending to write something today. He tucks the homework Lindsey did for him into one of the pages.

He runs a hand along the back of his hairline and down his neck absentmindedly, trying his best to listen to the teacher garble on about some nonsense that Aleks is sure isn’t even English. He pulls his fingers away from his neck, and they’re shiny, like they’re wet. 

He puts his hand to his neck again, and it’s damp. He itches at the spot and feels skin flake away, like a barely-there mesh keeping all his organs inside his body. He pulls his hand away and looks at his fingers. They’re black with blood.

He stands up, abruptly, jostling both Lindsey and the desk. She squawks in surprise. So much for not being the centre of attention. He excuses himself from the classroom, ignoring the pointed glare from Humbert Humbert and runs for the bathroom.

Shouldering the swinging door open, a clear fault in design, he heads for the furthest cubicle. He slams the door behind him and hastily does up the lock. His hands are shaking so he misses the hole a few times and he whimpers, the desperation of needing to be alone overwhelming him.

He puts the toilet seat down and sits. And breathes. He sits with his feet on the seat, puts his head between his knees and his hands, clasped, behind his neck, like this is a Drop, Cover and Hold-On drill in the event of an earthquake, or your whole world collapsing in on itself. His eyes are squeezed shut so tight they might as well not be there.

The bathroom itself is dingy, not having been decorated since it was erected those 10 million years ago, and there’s an ever-present stench of urine. But it’ll do. 

When the urge to vomit is not as oppressing, he opens his eyes. It takes him a few seconds to be able to see clearly without light flares and weird shapes floating around, and when everything is as close to 20/20 as it’s ever gonna get, he pulls his hands away from his neck and brings them in front of his face, once again.

They’re as clean as the day he was born. Not an ounce of colour on his alabaster skin. He frowns, his panic-stricken brain not catching up with the situation quite yet. He touches his hand to his neck again to double check, but they come away clean again. He huffs, humourlessly, and his cheeks flare with embarrassment. He should be used to shit like this by now.

He stands, slowly, and unlocks the stall. His hands are steady, and the lock slides open effortlessly, just to mock him. He walks to the sink, turns on the tap and splashes water onto his face, hoping to kick himself back into some semblance of working order. 

The bell for the end of the period rings, making Aleks jump. He realises that he must’ve been in there for some fucking time. And that he’s not as calm as he feels, the residual panic hanging on like a bad smell.

Lindsey tells him where he needs to be, and what time he needs to be there, so his grasp on his own timetable is a little less than loose. He has no idea what’s happening at any given time. So, when he opens the door bathroom fully and sees what seems to be the whole fucking alumni milling around, he wonders how long he was in there.

He spots his gang in the quad over the crowds and weaves through what seems like the entire school before he gets there. His bag is hanging limply from Lindsey’s hand and he counts himself lucky to have her, no matter how undeserving he is.

“Eat a bad curry last night?” Brett asks, when Aleks is close enough to hear him.

Aleks frowns, though in the back of his mind, he knows where this is going. “What?”

“Lindsey says you rushed out of the classroom like a bat outta hell, figured you ate somethin’ that decided to make an appearance in the middle of your Hamlet reading. Something rotten, right?”, he says, the smug smile on his face suggesting that he thinks he’s the funniest fucking person alive, but Aleks would rather this than Lindsey have told them what had really happened. 

Because she’s not stupid, and she knows something’s up. So, he goes along with it.

“Yeah”, he says, faux amusement on his face, “dad went to that new Indian place on the corner. Can tell why it’s empty year fuckin’ round.”

“Thought he was working?” Damn Trevor for knowing every inch of his life. The hard set of his jaw speaking for itself.

“He left it in the fridge.”

“Yeah, for how long?”, Jakob joins in now, and Aleks feels like he’s the bear at the circus, treading lightly to avoid the pins on the floor to keep up this fucking dance. Some sick performance to stop people asking questions. “It might’ve been old. Probably why it gave you the shits”.

“Okay. Can we stop talking about shit now, please? It’s too early”, once again, Lindsey saves the day. He should really start doing his homework, “besides, haven’t you fuckers got lessons to go to?”

Brett looks at his watch, then, and his eyes widen in alarm. “Shit! I’m going to be late for wrestling. See you guys later!”, and the lumbering fool of a boy turns on a dime and waves over his shoulder before disappearing back into the main school building. Asher and Jakob bid their farewells, and Lindsey gives Aleks a stern look, pushing his abandoned rucksack into his chest, before leaving as well.

Trevor still has that hard look on his face, and Aleks’ conscience plays heavily on him. “What’s going on with you?” and Aleks looks away, not wanting to have this conversation right now. Or ever.

“I’m serious. I’m tired of this shit.” His hands are bunched at his sides. “You’re going to flunk out of the year if you carry on." He's 6 months younger than Aleks, why's he talking like he's 20 years older? This is bullshit. "You wanna be like Brett, huh? Nearly 21 and still in fucking school?” He rubs a hand over his tired face. “Talk to me”. His hands outstretched like he’s begging for mercy. Aleks wishes he could give it to him.

“I think the wrestling knocked most of the brain cells out of Brett's head, in his defence”, he’s trying to be smart to deflect, but Trevor doesn’t crack a smile. His face remains medusa and Aleks can’t bear to look at the hurt sitting deep in his face. He figures his time is up, and he heaves a deep sigh.

“I’m seeing the boy from the lake”, he confesses, not really looking at anything. Wanting to be as far away from this conversation as possible with his body still in the middle of it. The jury gasps.

“And when you say seeing, you mean—?” He stalls, waiting for Aleks to finish his sentence, not wanting to overstep or assume.

“Seeing, Trevor!”, he’s looking at Trevor now, “Like how people see? With their eyes?”. He's feeling defensive, his voice is high in his throat, and Trevor nods, not taking the bait. Not wanting to fight.

“Ah. Okay. I thought you meant seeing like, boyfriends. Like you were fucking some monster”, and he’s laughing. But Aleks doesn’t think it’s very funny. 

Calling The Boy a monster doesn’t sit right with him at all. But he doesn’t think getting indignant about an off-hand comment is a good idea, especially when it seems like Trevor might not find it funny either but laughing is all he can bring himself to do. 

So, he stows it away. He’ll bring it up when Trevor is more acclimated with Aleks being a full-blown maniac.

“No, I’m not fucking a fish, dude. I’m just—”, he rubs the back of his neck again, and flinches away at the memory of feeling the inside of his body on the outside, “seeing him. Everywhere.” His arms are folded across his chest, like he’s trying to protect himself. Like his flesh is a suit of armour against whatever the hell is happening to him.

He doesn’t feel any safer, just small. He’s 8 again and his mother’s just walked out after a particularly hostile conversation with his father about his drinking. 

His father had swung, and missed, inebriated to the point of no return, and Aleks’ mother had decided she wasn’t taking any chances. She’d skulked in the next morning, though, the scrambled eggs she’d made enough apology for the both. Aleks had sulked at the breakfast table. It was all so unfair. Where was her apology? Where were her scrambled eggs?

She’d come to visit him in his bedroom, afterwards, with a steaming hot chocolate in his favourite yellow mug, marshmallows floating on the top. She’d whispered promises into his forehead, “I’ll take you with me next time”, and Aleks had pretended that he couldn’t feel her warm tears landing in his hair.

“Have you spoken to anyone else about it?” Trevor asks, bringing him back to Earth, concern sitting heavy on his face. Aleks shakes his head no. “Do you want to?” 

Aleks shakes his head again, looking glum. “Okay, then it can stay between us. I promise not to tell anybody,” and he holds his pinkie out, wiggling it when Aleks doesn’t react, “uh, pinkie promise, dude. Come on.”

And Aleks holds his hand out, then. He doesn’t want to disappoint Trevor. Not again. They link pinkie fingers like they’re 10 years old and in the playground, and Aleks is pinkie promising that he won’t tell Cindy about Trevor’s crush on her. They were blood brothers, then.

“Good. Now, don’t keep secrets from me again”, Trevor orders, “or I’ll have to kill you.” He punctuates the threat with a swift slap to the upper arm, and Aleks gasps in mock-outrage, breaking out into a grin when Trevor laughs. His smile drops, though, into something more serious and they nod, promising not to keep secrets from each other again.

The moment sobers, and Trevor glances down at his watch. “Aren’t we supposed to be in Gym?”

He gestures for Trevor to lead the way, following him through the swinging door towards the gym.

Aleks uncrosses his fingers from behind his back.

* * *

Aleks realises the minute he walks through the gymnasium doors that he doesn’t have his kit with him, having been preoccupied with more important thoughts as of late, thanks. 

That means he’s going to have to go to Lost and Found and talk to the wretched woman who mans the front desk. He watches everybody running around in their pearl white t-shirt and clean black shorts and knows that he’s going to both look and feel like the village idiot in a kit covered in mud that’s probably started growing its own self-sufficient ecosystem.

He tells Trevor that he’ll meet him on the court with a soft shove and makes his way to the reception. 

He ambles, not in any particular rush to be the laughingstock of Midwestern America, but he knows that if he takes the piss and arrives to class too late, he’ll be hung out to dry. So, he walks as fast as his self-preservation will let him, his shoes squeaking on the linoleum, steamed to within an inch of its life.

“How can I help you?” She asks before he’s even in sight. He presumes she heard his shoes. Maybe she’s part bat with echolocation. She’s not terribly old, though the stress of her job has aged her. She wears her hair in faded-red dye, her grey hair peeking through in her roots and making her appear to have a receding hairline. Her skin is covered in a sweaty gloss, and she smells vaguely of stale coffee, as most administration does, for whatever reason. 

She offers him a smile, but it’s cold. Or vacant. She doesn’t care. He can’t blame her.

He reaches the desk, and drums his fingers on the wood, embarrassed. “I need to borrow a spare kit”, he explains, “for gym.”

“Your name?” She asks, flat, already pulling out the form that Aleks needs to sign like he’s handling important goods and not unwashed clothes that are probably older than he is.

“Marchant, Aleksandr”, he leans towards her, so she can hear him.

“Whose class are you in?” Not looking at him.

“Dunlop, ma’am”.

And she grimaces like it makes her uncomfortable to hear the formality. She fills out the parts of the form that are pertinent to her, and then slides it over to him. She needs a manicure.

“Sign your signature next to the box with your name in it. Bring the kit back, washed. Failure to do so will result in a penalty”, and it’s a well-rehearsed dance. Aleks bites his tongue. He thinks it’s a little unfair. He knows full well that this kit hasn’t been washed a day in his life, so why should he break the cycle?

Instead, he says, “thanks”, not sure he means it. He takes the kit she handed to him off the desk and lets it swing down, hitting him in the side of the leg. He salutes her with two fingers as he leaves, heading for the changing rooms.

When he gets there, Trevor’s in his usual spot, the corner near the showers. It smells weird over there, so no one ever bothers them. It's a safe space from meat-headed idiots with one brain cell between them.

“Hey!” He greets, cheery as ever, already dressed. “You got one?” and Aleks holds up the bag in victory. Trevor clasps and unclasps his hands, gesturing for Aleks to give it to him for further inspection. He throws it underarm on his way over and Trevor catches it in his chest. He opens the bag and closes his eyes, grimacing at the smell.

“Ew-uh, yuck. Come smell this.” And Aleks really doesn’t fucking want to, but he does. He leans in. 

It smells like mildew. Like his grandmother’s basement. Like putting laundry away wet. Trevor passes it back to him, not wanting to be in possession of something so putrid, the drama queen. “Who’s it belong to?” He asks, peering over into the bag where Aleks is reading the label on the back of the shorts.

“James Wilson”, he frowns, raising an eyebrow in question, “ever heard of him?”

“Nope!” Trevor says, “And now you’re wearing his clothes. That’s pretty gross, man. Sounds like that stranger-danger shit they talk about in assemblies”, and Aleks rolls his eyes.

“What would you have me do, go out there naked? Get a detention? Who’s gonna hang out with your loser-ass if I get detention?”

Trevor nods. “Fair.”

They’re interrupted by their gym teacher busting into the changing rooms, screaming like a drill sergeant. Probably got kicked out of the Marines for being a pain in the ass, if the suck-up tattoo on his forearm says anything. Other than _I’m A Tool_.

“Time to go, boys! Out, out, out!” He’s gesturing wildly with his hands, trying to rush 30 very uninterested teenagers out into the cold, winter air. “Track field in t-minus five minutes”, Aleks rolls his eyes at the wannabe Schwarzenegger fuck. “Anyone not out there in five minutes or less gets an hour detention after school, with me!”.

* * *

Aleks slams the front door shut when he gets home, happy to be out of the biting cold, having spent two gruelling hours running around in it at school already. He's pretty sure the military drill they were doing isn't on the school curriculum.

He takes a quick glance at himself in the mirror hung on the wall in the hallway and huffs at his reflection. He looks like a porcelain doll. His nose and cheeks are rosy red, and his hair is standing up on end. He sniffs, his nose running. He'll probably get a cold, he usually does. 

Genetics skipped out of the Good Immune System part.

He huffs and heaves his bag onto the floor by the stairs. With it being determined to slip off his shoulder the whole way home, Aleks is glad to be rid of the weight.

He leans down and pulls the balled-up kit out of his bag, and heads to the kitchen where the washer is. 

There’s another note waiting for him on the table.

In chicken scratch Aleks is surprised he can even read, the note drawls: 

_Gone fishing. Money on the table for takeout. Don’t wait up._

Aleks screws up his face. Since when the fuck does his dad fish? He’s never seen any fishing poles lying around, nor any bait in the fridge. Not to mention that this is the first time he’s hearing about it. 

But whatever, he’s not his father’s mother. At least he was nice enough to leave dinner money. He hopes he'll put it to good use but the devil on his shoulders says it's not fucking likely. Aleks picks it up from the table and slides it into the back pocket of his jeans. Whatever.

He opens the washer, takes the kit from where he left it balled up on the table and tosses it in. Thank fuck his dad stocked up on washer tablets because like fuck is he paying a penalty charge for not washing something that should’ve been washed twelve years ago.

“ **Isn’t that your mother’s job?** ”

Aleks spins, facing the boy apparently now in his kitchen.

“That’s a little archaic, isn’t it?” He hopes the sarcasm masks the fear, and the anger. He feels resentful. Shouldn't everyone know about his mother? Shouldn't the world stop spinning to look for her? 

“Do you ever say hello? Or do you just say whatever the fuck is on your mind when you enter a room?" He tuts, sucking spit between his teeth. "Sounds like you might need to talk to someone about that, buddy”. 

He’s an asshole and he knows it. It’s genetic. He wishes he was sorry, but when a strange lake-living boy turns up in your kitchen, there's not a huge amount of room for niceties or southern hospitality. 

Besides, this is the Mid-west. 

The Boy licks his lips. “ **Where’s your father?** ”

“Fishing”, he shoves his hands in his pockets.

“ **Do you know where?** ” His voice rumbles like it’s a being of his own. Aleks swears he feels the walls shake around him.

Aleks shrugs. “I didn’t know he fished until like, two minutes ago.”

“ **What are you washing?** ” Like he's determined to give Aleks whiplash with these sudden subject changes. Someone needs to switch to decaf.

And anyway, what is this, the Spanish Inquisition? “Spare kit from school. Forgot my own.”

“ **It’s on your bed**.” He states matter-of-factly, like that’s the kind of information he should be privy to.

And Aleks’ eyes widen. “Pardon?", he stumbles in surprise, "What, you’re hanging out in my bedroom when I’m not here, now? That’s a little fucking weird, don’t’cha think?”

“ **I was looking for something.** ”

“I—what? I don’t fucking know you! What could I possibly have that you want?”

“ **Well, don’t I have something you want?** ” and Aleks’ heart stops. For just a second. But it stops. Aleks feels his veins whine with vacancy. He blinks, slow.

He swallows. He’s being careful. He knows the answer, but he’s not willing to play his hand if he’s not getting the chips in the middle of the table.

The Boy advances on him, cornering him against the island by the sink. Trust his father to do the washing up, for once, the security of his ever-abandoned bread knife not available at the moment. 

Leave a message. Aleks could surely use the reassurance right now.

The Boy braces his hands on either side of Aleks’ body, leaving him no room to manoeuvre. 

Conceding is certainly not how you win poker, but Aleks is powerless to do anything else. His legs feel like jelly, the adrenaline making his body thrum. Panic ebbs, slowly. He’s not willing to let go of it just yet.

“ **You should have a bath. You look cold** ”. He rumbles, running the back of his finger along Aleks’ flushed cheek, and Aleks closes his eyes at the sensation, drinking it in. 

This is what he wants. All the time. For ever. 

He wants The Boy's hands on him, wherever he can reach, whenever he wants to. His hands are freezing, but Aleks doesn’t care. 

The sensation vanishes, and Aleks opens his eyes, confused. He stands in the kitchen alone, again, still reeling. The warmth in his belly and fluttering in his chest becoming a bit too familiar in his opinion. 

How many times can he reach the edge of the cliff and not jump? 

He looks to the floor and speaks, quiet like a child forgotten. “Bye, then”, with only empty air to hear him.

The washer clunks the familiar song of a machine too many times repaired. It screams with age. 

Replace me, please.

Let me let go.


	6. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> context for aleks' mother  
> TW: domestic abuse

Mary Clover was a lover. She was a lamb, born in 1944 to a humble couple living in rural Massachusetts. 

A sunny disposition, with honey hair and milk skin, she stood at the meagre height of 5’2, with a lithe body resembling a woman never quite outgrowing a girl. She tended on the shy side, her voice not often used, but had allowed the thrill of adventure to be sewn in, regardless.

Her father was a military man, having been drafted in 1939 at the height of the Second World War. He had up and left one day, with a last farewell on her mother’s rose-kissed lips and the promise of being back as soon as he could. 

Her mother had described Mary as a gift, with tearful joy, when it seemed like her loneliness could climb no higher. But, even with the hint of morose in her voice at the memory, her father’s arrival after nearly six gruelling years had made the wait worth it. She had believed in the phrase, “absence makes the heart go stronger”, but her mother’s own account had made it law.

Her mother was an amateur seamstress, teaching herself how to sew when she was a child, patching up the holes in her sister’s smocks to save the little money her family had had. At the very height of the Great Depression, she had watched her father leave, walking down the rickety cobblestone path leading away from her house, with the promise of a better job with better prospects and a slighter fuller paycheck, and had never seen him again. 

She had promised Mary when she was a toddler to never let her grow up fatherless, as she had. The pain would be too intolerable for Mary, an already sensitive babe, and her mother would not survive it a second time.

Mary had grown up around skill, her interests nourished to the marrow. 

An avid reader, she had sworn to read every book in their small cottage to the back wall of the bookshelf. She considered herself knowledgeable, easily besting her parents on their knowledge, but without boast. 

She wanted to share, not to scorn. So, when she announced over a slow-roasting stew, that she had prepared while her parents were working, that she was thinking of training to be a teacher, not a chair at the table was surprised. Instead, elated, they pushed for her to enrol in university, using her job as a diner waitress to finance the endeavour, knowing full well that offering her financial support would be met with disdain, her fierce independence refusing to accept handouts. 

She had laid in her bed that warm June night with a smile so wide it could be seen from space. 

Hell, the man on the moon was probably smiling along with her. She had never felt so lucky. Her hands felt heavy with the world, the Earth peering up at her from her fingers, an opportunity on every corner of the globe beckoning her to try. 

Mary had fallen asleep a little after 1am, unusually late for her, but her brain had refused to give in. Her hard work seemed to be a little closer to being paid off.

* * *

The wind whips. Mary tucks her chin into her scarf and readjusts the hat on her head. She’s forced to walk to work, her parents leaving for work early and her being too broke to afford a car. The only co-workers she has that can drive are the ones with fifty years behind them, and she’d much rather walk than pool with them, nice as they are. 

The one friend she’s made is a kind, but outspoken girl called Susie. Mary sometimes watches Susie as she’s making the coffee rounds in the morning and wonders how they ever became friends, being so completely opposite to each other. Susie is a little older than Mary, only by a few months, but Susie never lets her forget it. Any time she can pull rank, she does. Mary loves her, so she allows herself to be humoured. 

She’s a tall and supple dark-haired, dark-skinned art student, living a little outside of the town, in a leaking hole in the wall. Mary thinks she ought to be a model, but she doesn’t seem very interested, tabloids touting the hyper-sexualisation of young girls as the reason. Mary had smiled along with Susie’s diatribe, the more she got wound up the more beautiful she became, if that were even possible. Mary had counted herself lucky then, too. 

She’d invited Mary there, to her apartment, once or twice, Mary obliging only to hear the end of it.

The last time, it’d been for Mary’s twentieth birthday, and Susie had refused to let it go by uncelebrated. They’d stayed up late into the night, throwing off Mary’s well-kept sleeping schedule, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care at the time. Mary would go again, if Susie asked.

Mary steps onto the curb from the road, huffing quietly when the toe of her Mary-Janes scuff against the cement. They’re polished black and patent, per her boss’s request. The buckle presses hard into her foot, the strap having been done up too tight in her rush to get out of the house. Her pinafore sits folded in her bag, neatly ironed the night before. She, at least, prepared that.

She counts herself lucky that her boss is respectful and professional. She sometimes overhears her classmates talking before lectures about their bosses, who are a little too friendly, a little too interested. She tries to mind her own business, but the girls in her class are not quiet talkers. 

She walks towards the diner door, waving when she catches Susie’s eye through the glass.

The bell rings above her head when she opens it and walks in, stamping the dew from her shoes on the doormat. She takes her hat from her head and shoves it into her coat pocket. There’s a steaming coffee waiting on the counter for her, like it is every morning, on the house. Or the chef, who beams at her from his station. She waves a good morning and heads for the locker room, Susie in tow. 

“Morning, pipsqueak.” Her voice is like syrup, low and smooth. She tucks a loose strand of her uncontrollable hair behind her ear, the faux-pearl earring hanging from her lobe glinting in the light.

“Morning, Suse. How’s it been so far?” She replies, letting her coat hang from her shoulders as she opens her locker, setting her coffee down on top of the unit, thankfully not very tall in its stature.

“Usual’s came in for their coffee. Frank came in with a special lady, Dorothy, this morning”, she raises a brow and inclines her head, “never thought I’d see the day”, her teeth pearl white and dazzling.

She shares a delighted laugh, leaning her hip against the letterbox red lockers. Mary hadn’t thought it’d ever happen either. 

After Virginia, they all assumed that Frank would remain heartbroken until the day he died. And that he’d die soon, which would’ve been a real shame. Frank was the favourite amongst the waitresses, so often well-dressed and polite, his eyes holding a well of stories begging to be heard. But he hadn’t felt much like talking for the past year, so Mary’s secretly overjoyed that she might get to hear him say more besides, “Thank you, miss”, for once.

“Other than that, nothing really of interest. How’s your morning been?” 

“Oh, riveting, Susanne. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve been up to, and all before 10am”, she looks at Susie through her lashes and counts off on her fingers, “I volunteered at the senior hospice, and then I solved world hunger, and I even had time for oatmeal”, knocking Susie jovially on the upper arm, she speaks earnestly “and you’re still the best part of my day.”

She snorts, covering her face with her hand before levelling, seriously. “Okay, Margaret. You’re cute but you’re not that cute.”

Mary grins. “You think I’m cute? Oh, Suse”, she drawls. Susie pushes off from her position leaning against the locker and storms out of the room. “Oh, it’s hard to see you leave, but I love to watch you go!”, Mary shouts after her, laughing when Susie purposely wiggles her hips that little bit more, grinning coy over her shoulder as she disappears from view. 

Mary puts her satchel on the bench in the middle of the locker room, and slips her coat from her shoulders, folding it over her arm to fit into the locker. She turns and undoes the buckle of her bag, taking out the pinafore apron and tying it around her waist. She tucks the issued notepad and pen in her waist pocket, and then closes her satchel and lifts it into the locker. 

She looks at herself in the locker mirror, tucking her loose hair behind her ears and making sure the barrette is tight enough that her hair will stay in place. She sighs, and then closes the door, locking the padlock with her issued key.

She yawns as she reaches up to grab her coffee. Thank god for Miguel.

Susie pops her head in the door, but only to snap her fingers. Mary rolls her eyes lovingly. 10am rolls around quickly.

* * *

The bell above the door rings. The diner has just started serving lunch, and their regulars are filtering in like someone disturbed an anthill. The diner isn’t ever particularly busy, but lunch is always bustling. Mary waves at Agnes, a lady in her mid-70s, who orders the same grilled cheese every Wednesday. Mary shouts over her shoulder that grilled cheese has arrived, and Miguel gets to work. 

It settles for 15 minutes, and Mary takes the opportunity to drink another coffee. Late-night studying had her up for most of the night, and she’s feeling it now. She watches Susie bob to Sinatra flowing from the jukebox. Mary surveys the floor, and it’s like Susie’s captivated the eye of every patron in the room. 

_The time is right, your perfume fills my head, the stars get red and, oh, the night's so blue,_

_and then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like "I love you"._

And then the bell tolls above the door again. It’s a lone man, and like a heat seeking missile, he marches his way over the counter. From the front door to the counter, a sick sway to his hips as his heavy boots plod against the linoleum floor, Mary watches with dull panic. Being afraid of strangers is something she’d had to get over quickly, but this feels different. This man may be a stranger, but he’s also strange.

Eyes wide and face pale, Mary figures the man is a little over 40, stout and with a copper coloured beard that he wears ragged on his chin, like he hasn't combed it out in a few years. Like he doesn't have a wife to remind him it needs trimming. He wears a newsboy cap tight against his head, the sinew of hair peeking out from under the rim. His cheeks are ruddy with the cold, but he doesn't seem to mind much. 

He takes his waterproof off and hangs it over his arm as he leans against the counter. 

The deep purple under his eyes is a dark contrast to his sallow skin. Susie races over and takes charge, sensing Mary’s discomfort, and leads him to a booth to be seated. He skulks after her, as she leads him to a booth in the far corner, facing away from the counter so he can be kept an eye on but not being able to keep an eye. Mary smiles small to herself, eternally grateful for Susanne Rizzo’s unwavering confidence.

But Susie is Susie, and sometimes, she thinks Mary should flounder. Fear is a good teacher, as if that’s enough of an explanation. But still, when she walks to the counter to pass her station to Mary, Susie squeezes her hand, and Mary lets herself be calmed.

Mary nods curtly, mostly to herself, and heads from the counter to the back corner of the diner, briefly stopping at the red leather booth that Agnes is sat at, bidding her a good morning despite it being early afternoon, and assuring that Agnes is enjoying her grilled cheese. She stalls for as long as she can, but the man clears his throat, and Mary figures her reprieve is over. She brushes the back of Agnes’ booth as a farewell.

“Good morning, sir—”, she starts but the auburn stranger interrupts her.

“Norman.”

“Norman”, she clears her throat, correcting herself as if she’s supposed to know the name of every Tom, Dick and Harry that walks into her diner. “What can I get for you?”

“You do pancakes?” He’s short, and eye-contact doesn’t seem to be his strong suit. 

“Absolutely, sir. We do regular flour pancakes, blueberry pancakes, but they’re usually for breakfast. We can offer you chicken or turkey wraps, or burgers?” Mary tries, but it seems the man is set in his ways.

“I’ll have the regular pancakes. Piping hot and doused in syrup. Do you have lemon and sugar?” He looks at her then, but not really in her eyes. Just in the general direction of her face.

“Yes, sir. The sugar, lemon juice, and syrup come in an assorted basket, so you can apply them yourself. I’ll go get one for you. Did you want anything else, or will that be all?”

“Black coffee.”

She scrawls R. Pan, and B. Coffee on her notepad, nods her farewell to Norman and heads back to the counter. She catches Susie’s eye, who’s inclined behind the till and against the counter, with a cup of coffee in her hand. She’s grinning, mirth dancing in her eyes. She loves to tease, so when Mary’s within earshot, she says, “so, when’s the wedding?”

“His name is Norman.” She replies, dry. “They’re remaking Psycho in this diner and I’m Marion”, she walks past Susie and into the kitchen.

“Well, better put the wedding on hold and use the money you saved for it to buy a grave plot”, Susie shouts over the separator, and as funny as she is, Mary ignores her.

“Miguel.” She announces loudly over the sound of the oil sizzling on the grill. “Stack of pancakes, doused in syrup”, and when Miguel levels her with a look, she shrugs. “He said it.”

She reaches for one of the small wicker assortment baskets that holds various condiments, sugar, and syrup, and heads back onto the floor. The man is looking at her, his gaze stormy. 

Mary waits for Miguel to call it, and then takes the pancakes from him, and begins her procession to the booth, walking backwards for a few beats, begging Susie for help, before turning around and making the rest of the way over to the back-corner booth. 

“Here you go, sir. Your pancakes and your lemon, sugar and syrup. Please enjoy”, she implores, with a weird intensity, “If you need anything else, I’ll be right over by the counter.” She smiles sickly sweet, hoping to win him over, not being able to stand being disliked, but the man just nods, and Mary takes her leave silently. 

Her Mary Janes clack softly against the floor.

Mary figures that he hadn't been anything to worry about. He was small, even to her frame where anything seemed big. She knows she’s being stupid, but still: the intensity of his gaze unnerved her. 

She finds herself looking over her shoulder on the walk home, the 5pm dusk having not quite been grasped by twilight just yet. She walks a little faster than usual, a rushed skip in her walk, and she hears the relief in her breath when her house comes into view. She hates being scared. 

She races up the porch steps, careful not to slip. 

She closes the heavy front door with force and leans against it, breathing a heavy sigh of relief. She drops the satchel in the vestibule, unbuckles her shoes and toes them off, and then hangs her coat up with the amalgamation of others. 

She walks into the house, the smell of red pepper soup greeting her senses warmly. 

“Mama?” She calls out, listening with a keen ear for a jolt in the rhythm of the house. She hears a pan being put down on the kitchen island, and smiles at her mother when she pokes her head out of the kitchen.

“Darling!” She greets, and then waves her hand, gesturing for Mary to walk further into the house.

“Come in, come in. Your father’s making soup.”

“Yeah, I can smell it. Smells delicious. Is it red pepper?” 

She hears her father’s low, hearty grumble of laughter and feels a lump in her throat, suddenly full of warmth.

“Sure is! Red pepper and chili. Your favourite, courtesy of your grandfather, God rest his soul.” Her father replies, raising his voice to help it carry. “Are you ready to eat now?” He asks when Mary walks into the kitchen. His dark, wiry moustache hangs neatly over his upper lip, just shy of touching his teeth when he grins. He’s in need of a trim.

“Absolutely! I’m starving.” Not really in the mood to whine, she doesn’t care to ask about their respective days, fearing they’ll reverse the question. She’d much rather enjoy her meal and head to bed early.

They sit down at their oak dining table, adorned with a deep green tablecloth her mother had made for Christmas one year, wanting to stray away from the traditional red. Mary sits on one side of the square table, while her parents sit on the other. There’s an inch of space between them, as if they’re so in love they’d prefer to be one person, and Mary smiles down into her orange soup. 

Will that ever be her? It hurts until it doesn’t. 

When bowls are scraped clean, she cajoles her parents into the lounge to relax while she cleans up, preferring to do it alone. She finds it satisfying to watch the ceramics become clean, and to know that when they’re all dried and put away, that the kitchen is back in order. It helps her calm down. 

She pops her head into the living room when she’s done to tell her parents that she’s heading to bed. 

After she cleans her teeth and washes her face, she goes into her bedroom, undresses into her sleepwear and then she sits at her vanity table, staring at herself in the mirror. She looks haggard. Who knew working at a diner would be so stressful?

She takes her hair out from her barrette and lets it sit, untamed, long against her back. Her scalp aches where she’s had her thick curls contained all day, so she runs her hands through it a few times, massaging her scalp on the way through. She brushes it, braids it, and then gets into bed. The sheet is cold, just the way she likes it.

The instant her head hits the pillow, she’s out. Falling into a deep slumber, beneath layers upon layers of fabric, fighting against the winter cold.

* * *

The next Wednesday morning starts a little easier than the week before. She wakes up with enough time to shower, to eat breakfast (oatmeal, her favourite), and to get dressed for work without putting anything on backwards in a rush. Today, she’s wearing thermal stockings, not making the same mistake as last week of only wearing 60 denier and never actually feeling warm. She runs her hands through her hair, curly from the braid, and clips it half up with her favourite clip, a long and slender barrette, brindle brown in colour. She likes the contrast it offers her hair. Makes her feel more put together.

She heads down the short flight of stairs leading to the first floor of the house. She grabs a banana from the fruit bowl on her way to the vestibule, to have as a snack when morale starts to dwindle. The potassium usually lifts her right up.

She packs her apron in her bag, along with her notepad and a water bottle. The less coffee, the better. She dons her winter coat, a teddy coat with faux-silk lining, her winter hat, and a pair of mittens, which she saves until she’s buckled her shoes. She puts the banana in her pocket for good measure, pulls her satchel over her shoulder, and heads out of the door into the icy tundra.

Mary hadn't known it then, but in that moment, watching the stranger walk through the door, the bell ringing his announcement above his head, she had fallen in love with him.

Susie was babbling to Miguel about her Lifelike Art class, and how much of a treat it was that they had had nude models in, and Miguel was stifling laughter in between whispers, when the bell sung loudly throughout the store. 

“No, seriously Miguel, listen—. Hey, you might be a Nancy and not appreciate it, but that class was the best class of my life. Hands down, I wanted to shake Betty’s hand on the way out. Those women were angelic, like they’d been on special reserve for the day from heaven itself”, her hands flailing wildly as she gesticulates, before landing palm down and splayed against her chest, where her heart ought to be.

Miguel’s voice is muffled behind his palm, where he’s leaning on it against the separator, when his reverie breaks and he asks in confusion, “who’s Betty?”

“Oh, Miguel!”, Susie yells, “it’s like you never listen. Do you need your damn ears checked? Is there oil build-up in there?” 

Mary decides, foolishly, to get involved then. “Betty’s the art teacher”, she explains, Susie smiling sunnily at her.

“Like the pimp of the nudists?” 

And Susie seems to deliberate between arguing and agreeing, but the trio are interrupted by a customer coming up to the till.

“Morning, sir.” Susie greets, and the customer breaks out of his lingering at Mary to reply.

“Hi, do I order here?” He asks, drumming his fingers dully against the wood of the counter. Mary regards him. The golden badge adorned on his breast says T. Marchant. He’s wearing a duck-egg blue police uniform, and Mary swallows. He looks off-duty, but she still finds herself surveying the room, just in case. They’re generally a trouble-less area, so having a police officer in her vicinity makes her a little nervous. 

The nerves in her belly have nothing to do with the fact that the man before her is chiselled and handsome. 

He has a five o’clock shadow, a light dusting of dark hair along his chops. His eyes are a warm amber, and when he smiles, it’s as if the sun is setting just behind them. He wears his smile a little crooked, and his nose looks as if it was broken many years ago. His face is lined with age, but Mary figures he’s still considered young, even if he’s sitting on the fence between the two. 

She presumes the stress of law enforcement can age you prematurely, anyway. 

His shoulders are broad, and he looks fit, though that probably comes with the job. His hair is a little browner than black, but in the right light, she suspects you probably couldn’t tell the difference. He stands much taller than her but doesn’t have much on Miguel, who stands at the respectable height of 5’11, something he felt needed announcing when they had first met.

She wets her lips, and then clears her throat when Susie’s foot nudges hers. She collects herself, blowing a stray hair from her face, and smiles warmly.

“Would you like me to show you to your table?” and she can feel Susie and Miguel’s stunned expressions burning a whole in the back of her head as she walks away, Mr Marchant tightly by her side. This confidence is anew. 

She gestures for the officer to take a seat and leans against the back of the booth opposite him. “How’s your morning going?” She’s not the conversational type, but she doesn’t really want to walk away just yet. 

“My morning’s going well, thank you—,” his eyes scan her uniform for her name-tag before his eyes land on it, and he smiles when he meets her eyes, “Mary. No trouble so far. What about your morning?”

“We’ve had no trouble, yet. So, it’s going pretty well.”

He laughs, warmly. “Yet?”

And she brings her voice low, then, teasing. “Yes, sir. It’s only 10.30am, sir. Anything can happen between now and closing.”

She lays no bait, but he takes the reel anyway. “You on ‘til close?”

She nods, mock-solemnly. “Yep. 5pm. Only six and half hours to go. You’re the most interesting thing to walk through that door, yet, besides Claude over there, but I see him every Wednesday”.

“What’s interesting about Claude?”

“French. He gets to critique our French bread and we get to better our recipe.” She smiles, inclining further into the booth, her hip aching, but she ignores the pang for now.

“You work every Wednesday, huh?” She nods. “Well, you must be pretty well-versed with the menu”, and she figures he’s nudging her towards what he came here for, so she stops the nonsense. She stands up straight, tucks her hair behind her ear, and lets the waitress in her take control.

“Yes, sir. Wednesday’s speciality is blueberry pancakes, but we also have chocolate chip, strawberry and full stack. We serve eggs: scrambled, fried, boiled, poached, or an omelette. We have French toast, as you know, as well as regular toast. We have hash browns, bacon, sausage, grilled cheese, Agnes’ favourite”, she nods over her shoulder to the lady sitting in a booth across the diner, “we have cereal, oatmeal, and we serve coffee, tea, juice or water”. She smiles, elated with the fact that she can still remember. Her regulars know what they want, so she hasn’t had to do it in a while.

“Well, that all sounds fantastic. I’m thinking omelette, with black coffee.” And she almost wants to chide him for making her recite the whole damn thing when all he wanted was that, but she doesn’t, because he’s a customer and that’d be unprofessional.

“Sure thing! We do cheddar, bacon, ham, onion and pepper, or just egg. Why we have so many options, I’ll never know.”

He laughs, rough. “Regular omelette sounds good to me. Are you going to write it down?”

“I have a fantastic memory. Plus, it’s not exactly the Constitution. Regular omelette with black coffee.”

Mr Marchant smiles, coy. “Oh! Before I forget, is dinner with me next Friday night on the menu?” 

Mary can feel her ears getting red, but she gets a grip of herself. “Yessir, but it’ll cost you $5.95 plus tax.” 

“Sounds great.”

She nods, and then turns and walks towards the counter. When she gets there, she keeps her back to the newcomer and squeezes her eyes shut, and splays her palms against the counter, bracing herself as excitement overwhelms her. 

Is it her time now?

* * *

Mary falls pregnant in November of 1967, at the tender age of 22. 

Her and Terry had been dating for a little under a year. After their dinner date, they’d been inseparable, spending every waking minute together, much to the disappointment of her parents, though they didn’t speak of it around her. She’d sat at the top of the stairs and heard them talking about it, though. 

They’d hoped for someone younger, irked by Terry being 11 years her senior. Apparently, being a broke student is more desirable than having a stable career, who knew? 

She’d woken up one morning, feeling ever so nauseous, and had run to the bathroom to throw up yesterday’s lunch and dinner. She’d racked her brain of things she’d eaten, and things she’d drank, before falling down the _Oh, shit. I’m pregnant_ hole, that she never thought she’d be in. 

Her fears had been verified by a doctor that Terry had insisted on taking her to when she told him. He’d been hoping for a negative.

Terry isn’t happy. He claims he’s far too old to have children, and far too busy with his job, but at his behest, they arrange a marriage. He won’t have a bastard child, and he won’t have her looking like a fallen woman. 

They move into a quaint maisonette thirty minutes outside of town. Mary feels deserted. She’s half an hour away from anybody she knows, bar Terry, with no car. He calls the shots, and she has nowhere to run if she disagrees. 

They marry in the December. Mary believes they call it a shotgun wedding. Her parents are distraught, her dreams of teaching being flushed. A waste. 

Terry doesn’t much care for the affair. 

Susie attends, as does Miguel, as witnesses and friends. Terry chastely kisses her. It’s over within 30 minutes. Terry gets drunk at the reception, and Mary’s rented wedding dress digs into her back where it’s too snug around the waist. She doesn’t think it’s maternity. 

The first time he hits her, she’s 6 months pregnant. 

She’d dropped a carton of milk on the floor, and it’d gone everywhere. He’d stormed in when he heard the crash and had exploded at the sight of the mess. He’d ordered, barked at her to clean it up, and when she’d protested, _but I can’t bend over_ , he’d reared his hand back and smacked her across the face. She’d fallen against the island, thankfully back first, and he’d left her there, crying in pain and ashamed. 

Their son was born in July 1968. He’d weighed 8lbs and 6oz and was 54cm long. They’d named him Aleksandr, after Terry’s paternal grandfather. 

He was raven-haired, and pale. Mary only saw Terry when she looked at him. He refused to breast-feed, and she felt repulsive to everyone around her.

Terry had recently taken a string of night shifts and had ordered Mary to go and stay with her parents, so she and the baby weren’t alone. Mary had revelled in the peace of her old haunt, the cottage offering comfort she hadn’t felt in months. The walls were warm colours, not littered with cracks and the birth of damp. The heating worked properly, and the doors had locks. 

When Aleks was 3, Terry broke her arm. They were arguing about bills, about Mary not pulling her weight. Despite having a toddler that needed looking after, Terry expected her to work full time. She’d talked back. She’d dared to say, and what about your son? 

He’d flung her against the banister, and Mary couldn’t tell if the crack was the wood of the stairs on the bone in her forearm. 

Terry had stormed out, and she’d crawled over to the landline and dialled Susie, begging her to come and pick her and Aleks up. She stayed at Susie’s for 3 weeks, until Terry’s begging had worn her down. Susie had warned her. Susie had said, you’re going to regret this, but Mary hadn’t listened.

In 1976, when Aleks was 8, Mary had stayed at Susie’s for the night. Terry was on the warpath, and Mary wasn’t taking any chances. So, she packed a bag worthy of two weeks' stay, but the guilt of leaving her only child with a man turned monster she once loved was enough to bring her back after the night was over with.

Aleks had run to her embrace, his face stained-red with tears, and Mary had crumbled in the doorway. She’d made Terry a breakfast of champions, as a way of keeping the peace. She wasn’t sorry. She hadn’t done anything. She was sorry to Aleks, but not to his father.

In 1979, Aleks had said goodbye to his mother when she dropped him off at school. He’d leaned over the middle console and turned his face for her to kiss his cheek. She’d said, _I love you, sunshine. I’ll see you later_ , but Aleks would never see her again. Terry had come home, smelling of whiskey, and had turned the house upside down, he’d smashed things against the wall, he’d upturned furniture, he’d screamed at Aleks until his throat was raw and his face was beet-red. 

Susie had visited, and then Miguel, and then Mary’s parents. They’d offered to put up posters. Terry wasn’t having it, preferring to handle things in his own way, but Aleks had tagged along. He missed his mother, and he’d do anything to get her back.

But posters yellowed, and whiter ones took their place.

The landline does not ring. No one knows where Mary Marchant is.


	7. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: brief descriptions of a dead animal

4th December 1986

A faded yellow poster flaps against a telephone pole in the wind, a ceremonial white flag.

A cat in the neighbourhood goes missing. It shows up three weeks later, strewn apart along a gutter, thick red blood flowing down into the drain.

A teenager, not even, barely, is found floating face down at the bottom of the quarry. Her hair is cut, roughly; as if done with a kitchen knife, to her scalp and her body is swollen with salt. She's blue, and her skin has bubbled with rot. Her eyes are missing, the black caverns where they once were now home to parasites. Her mouth sits open wide in terror.

Her mother wails from the walls of the morgue. She’s been missing for three years, and she is the Estevez’s only daughter. Was.

* * *

The wind whistles where it cuts through alleys adjoining city buildings, kicking up dead leaves and spinning them in tight, dancing circles. Winter is officially here and people are struggling to acclimate to its deft arrival.

On the way to the coffee shop, Aleks watches people grapple on the sidewalk, their morning-fogged brains not churning enough power yet to realise that the roads were icy. Apple-red cheeks hidden behind layers of scarves and hats, and the constant sniffing of running noses meant that winter had finally dug its claws in deep. 

With only two- and a-bit weeks ‘til Christmas, people were carrying their weights worth of bags filled with gifts. They had no time to think about the weather.

Aleks questioned his own brain, being out in it. Having no particular tolerance to the heat or the cold meant hell for half of the year. The summer heat was too oppressive, and the weeks upon weeks-worth of snow was cruel. 

Spring and Autumn were good. They were the best of both without the intensity of either. Everything else was too intense. Aleks would prefer nothing at all.

But, alas, he was desperate. He’d called Lindsey up at dawn, knowing full well she’d be awake, and arranged to meet her at the coffee shop. He’d wanted her to look over his notes for English. Aleks’ knew that he was treating her as if that was all she was good for, but he found it was becoming increasingly harder to just ring up and ask to hang out. He needed the company, but he didn’t want people asking questions. He didn’t used to be this needy before.

Because that’s what this was now.

Before and After. Before the Boy. When everything was good and normal, and Aleks was innocently crushing on Brett and listening to Asher and Jakob squabble and letting Lindsey do his homework for him, and meeting Trevor for coffee and actually finishing his drink.

But it wasn’t like that now. Everything was muddy. He didn’t know if he was coming or going. All his friends were looking at him differently and he hadn’t spoken to any of them properly in weeks. The corners of his vision were always black. He didn’t know who he was anymore.

He’d tried to do work today, wanting to feel some normalcy. Wanting to huff and sigh and complain about how bored he was and how uninteresting his assignment was, but he couldn’t.

He was having trouble focusing his eyes. The words were there and then they weren’t. The words were there but they weren’t the words that he’d written. The words were in a language he couldn’t understand.

Lindsey had agreed, only on the condition that Aleks bought their drinks, and only if they could go to their usual. It used to be just Aleks’ and Trevor’s but word had quickly spread and now the coffee shop was just The Place to Meet when someone wanted something or needed a bit of social interaction. Or, in Aleks’ case, needed an impromptu therapy session from someone who wouldn’t have him institutionalised.

The bell jingles over Aleks’ head as he walks in and his eyes flit briefly over to the counter, a weird habit he’d developed in his time coming to the coffee shop. Still no Mark. Instead there’s a brunette teenager, acne scarring along her jaw. She looks young. Doe-eyed. Scared for her life.

Who isn’t these days? Aleks thinks. Or at least it seems that way. Maybe it’s just him. Maybe he’s the only one haunted by something that isn’t there.

Lindsey’s not sitting at their table. Trevor and Aleks’ table. She knows better than that. Instead, she's sat in a window seat along the length of the cafe, face close to the steaming mug she holds lightly in both hands. It’s probably a coffee. She needs the caffeine to give her enough energy to boss everyone around. Aleks grimaces at the unfairness of the thought, though it is true.

“Hey”, Lindsey greets, pushing a steaming mug of hot chocolate towards Aleks’ side of the table as he makes his way towards it, “I know I said I’d only come if you paid but I couldn’t wait any longer,” she smiles sweetly, the curiosity evident in her eyes.

What took you so long? she wants to ask.

Aleks can see the words raring to go behind her teeth, but she doesn’t say it. He could cry, and he probably looks like he’s going to; face reddening like a child, which is why Lindsey says, “Anyway, hot chocolate was $10. Pony up.”

Aleks sputters, “Ten dollars! Fuck you. Ten dollars?” He throws his hands out to his sides and looks around him, as if to let the other patrons know how ridiculous the claim is, desperate to catch the eye of someone. “What, is the milk gold or something? More like a buck fifty and you’ll skim the rest off the top!” He sits back in his chair, hands on the table to push himself away in mock outrage.

“Yeah, man”, she takes a sip of her coffee and shrugs indifferently, careful not to spill it over the side despite herself, ”the $8.50 is what I charge for making me sit here for 45 minutes, feigning interest in the creep over there so he doesn’t kick me out for hogging the table”. She gestures with her chin to a salt-and-peppered barista wiping down the countertop. Aleks has never seen him before. His liver-spotted face turns briefly to face Aleks, and he whips around to face Lindsey.

“I’ll get it to you next week”, he promises, with an apologetic smile on his face.

“I’ll be $20 by then.” She shrugs at the askance on his face, “what?”, her face the epitome of mirthful innocence, “I charge interest.”

Clearly done with that train of thought and before Aleks can argue, she gestures with her fingers for his school bag. He passes it over the table, mindful of his full hot chocolate slowly losing its warmth and lets go when she’s got purchase of the bottom. It’s falling apart, tattered and old, and stained with god knows what from too many years of use. “You might wanna get a new bag”, she says as she unzips it, screwing up her nose at the disorganisation.

“Aleksandr Marchant, I swear to God and every other deity on this forsaken Earth. How do you live like this?” Her voice is high in her throat and she’s pulling out crumpled up paper like a magician pulling rainbow ribbons out of a hat. It just keeps coming. “Do you not have a folder? How do you know where anything is?” Her eyebrows are strewn together atop her forehead like the sight physically pains her.

Aleks shrugs. “I generally don’t know where anything is.”

“Yeah, no shit Mr I’m Failing Every Class. I can see why!” Her eyebrows are creeping up her head and her voice is getting louder. Aleks, for a second, feels afraid of her. Hell hath no fury, right? “I don’t know how much longer I can keep covering for you. When’s the last time you did English homework?”

“What month is it?” He’s sort of joking, and he hides his face behind his hands when Lindsey lobs a balled-up piece of forgotten homework at him.

“Okay.” She pushes her hair back, pulling up the skin of her forehead before levelling him with a look that says: This is the last time. He swallows and nods. He can only push so much.

“Okay”, she repeats, “we’re supposed to be reading a passage from Robinson Crusoe, but I feel like I’d be wasting my breath trying to explain, so I’ll give you the notes I have, and you can just—, I don’t know. Let them ferment and see if you can find anything worthy of writing about.”

Aleks can hear her. He swears he’s listening. He swears he’s staring at her mouth and watching the words spill out. But her face isn’t Lindsey’s face anymore. Her face is someone’s, but it isn’t hers.

“You okay?” He hears her say, but it sounds so far away; muffled like it’s underwater. “You look a bit green around the gills. You know I’m scared of vomit. Please don’t upchuck on this table right now”, her voice is high in her throat, “maybe we should rain check?” He looks away, out of the window for just a second, and when he faces her again, it’s her. Lindsey. He nods. Rain check. 

The hot chocolate is cold now anyway and the marshmallows have long sunken beneath the murk.

* * *

Time passes weirdly now. It passes in phases of light. Aleks knows the room got dark not that long ago, but he can’t tell you how long ago ‘not long ago’ is. He knows there’s strips of light across his room, but he can’t tell you if it’s the moon or the sun. Or maybe something entirely different. Maybe in the time he’s spent losing his mind, scientists have discovered a new planet with the breadth to devour all other light and leave only its looming influence as a guide.

The Boy is starting to feel like that. Except he’s starting to feel like the opposite of light. He’s starting to feel like a black hole, where all Aleks loves and cares for is sucked into and churned up into barely there, threaded-together pictures and sounds. He can’t recall any conversations he’d had with anyone; he can’t even recall the last time he went to school.

Nothing makes sense.

He can’t tell you how long ago he saw Lindsey. Whether he’d just got home or whether he’d been laying in his bed for months.

He sniffs the air. There’s no rancid smell of his body begging to be washed, so it can’t have been months or weeks. But it might’ve been days, or hours.

He’s not heard his dad in a while, but his dad is quiet these days. The violent fury is replaced with a stewing calmness that scares Aleks more than the rage. He would much prefer getting hit than the anticipation of waiting for it.

He heaves a breath and turns his head to look at the clock on the bedside table. 6:38. So, it’s the sun. Barely, with winter bringing constant darkness as well as cold, but dawn had managed to slip her way in, obviously.

He swears he sees a flash of black in his periphery when he returns his gaze to the ceiling. Swears he smells that thick muddy smell that The Boy seems to drag with him everywhere. 

But when he whips his head around to the other side of the room, there’s nothing. He even hazards a look off the edge of the bed, heaving himself up to hover over it, but there’s just dirty laundry and piles of papers from Lindsey. He shakes against the weight of his body on his elbows. He’s gotten weak these past few months. Could play his ribs like a xylophone. Can’t remember the last time he had a full meal, never mind three of them.

He lays back on his back and heaves another sigh, setting his jaw.

If there was ever a time to do it, it was now.

With the world burning around him and the corners of his vision being haunted by something he was sick of trying to explain.

If only it was that easy, if only he hadn’t been entertaining the thought since before this whole thing had started. If only The Boy was the catalyst, maybe it’d be easier to blame him. To say: A boy from a lake won’t leave me alone so I must kill myself. It’s entirely his fault and I’ve never thought about it before meeting him, your honour. I swear.

If only.

But he’d driven to the lake and let the handbrake up more than once. More than twice. Felt the pebbles underneath the tyres squirm when the car started rolling. Felt the lake open its jaw and wait, its empty stomach gurgling. He’d only ever gotten to the froth at the front before pussying out. Never actually let the tyres get wet, never lost sight of the pebbles in front of him. 

Maybe it would be different this time. Maybe he’d let up the brake, close his eyes and wait.

Let the old piece of shit car roll until water leaked into the footwell. Until he was up to his ankles in slime; the water passing his ears and filling his head until it’s the weight of a lead balloon. Only then would he open his eyes. Only then, when it was too late to turn back.

What would his friends think? Would they think it was an accident? Would they think the emergency brake failed? Would they ever guess that Aleks had done it on purpose?

The five people he loved more than anything on this god forsaken earth knelt around his coffin like they were at mass, pleading to anyone who would listen: how could any God let this happen? 

He was so young, so prosperous, had so much to look forward to. 

Would it go like that? Would they care? Or would no one show up? Would it just be Aleks’ body and the soil he would spend the rest of eternity rotting into? The thought nauseates him. Had he been tricking himself all along? Did anyone care about him? Would there be much point in writing a note if there was no one around to read it? If you scream at the bottom of a lake, is anyone going to hear you?

He thinks to reach for the telephone on the bedside table, wanting some reassurance, but the burning in his nose distracts him. The Boy is lying adjacent to him, and Aleks meets his eyes when he turns his head. His skin looks close to sloughing off, all the presumed water damage fucking up his epidermis. Aleks wants to laugh. Were there ever any marbles to begin with?

**“You couldn’t do it** ”.

“Do what?”

“ **You know what I’m talking about** ”. The Boy’s voice is low, his tone short.

“Say it”. Aleks enjoys toying with him. The power balance is turned on its head, and Aleks is sick of feeling like the kicked puppy. He’d like to be the steel-toed foot for once. He knows The Boy is talking about killing himself. Maybe the thought of it hurts him. Maybe that’s why Aleks wants him to say it. Wants someone to care.

“ **You couldn’t do it. Only I can do it** ”.

“What the fuck are you talking about? You’re not real. You can’t do anything.” Aleks huffs, annoyed, the remaining shreds of his sanity rubbing flint and steel together in a desperate bid to understand how he got himself into this.

The breath is knocked out of him when The Boy moves on top of him, legs either side of his torso and his hands wrapped around Aleks throat, squeezing hard. Water drips down his back and soaks the neck of his t-shirt. He can feel the long, dirty nails digging into his skin. Aleks’ vision goes hazy, until he can only see the outline of thick black hair and a wet body looming over him.

“ **Don’t say that** ”. The Boy says through gritted teeth.

And then he’s staring at the ceiling of his bedroom, the sun spilling through the bedroom window and illuminating the empty space next to him on the bed. No sign that The Boy was ever there.

He touches his throat, where The Boy’s hands were, but it's dry. Aleks swallows against the phantom feeling of his thick, cold fingers and closes his eyes, sighing a shaking breath.

* * *

The news gets to him late in the day. He’s in his room, where he spends most of his time now, laying on his bed and staring at the ceiling. He wonders how he spends hours doing this when it used to get tiring after five minutes. How long can you look at a ceiling before there’s no new stains to marvel at?

The sun certainly isn’t out anymore.

The phone on the bedside table trills suddenly and startles Aleks out of his reverie. He reaches for it blindly and waits to hear a noise on the other end before he says anything.

“Aleks?” It’s Trevor, his tinny voice bleeding through the receiver.

“Trevor”, Aleks sighs wistfully, pleased to hear his voice. “How are you?”

“Uh— “, his go-to when he needs to say something but doesn’t want to, “I’m not really calling for pleasantries. Sorry.”

Aleks is nervous. Trevor is never serious. The day Trevor doesn’t make a stupid fucking joke and spend the next ten minutes doubled over laughing at himself is the day Hell freezes over.

“Okay…”, Aleks licks his lips in anticipation, and sits up slightly, bony back resting against the metal headboard of his bed, spine sat between the bars. “What’s up?” Aleks feels his voice shake. He’s so quick to unnerve these days.

“I don’t really know how to say this—, uh, but, um—", he clears his throat around his bumbling, “you know the girl that went missing? Danielle Estevez? A couple of years ago, I think”.

“’83. Yeah”.

“Well, uh—, she was found, uh—the other night. The beginning of the week, I think. Says so in the paper.” Trevor sounds nervous, anticipating Aleks going off the deep end, no doubt. Already concerned that Aleks knew so much about the details in the first place.

Aleks blinks, fury filling him, body burning like his blood was set alight.

“She dead?” His voice is cold.

He hears Trevor gulp into the receiver, evidently afraid of the reaction Aleks is going to have considering the last time he heard this kind of news.

“Just tell me, Trevor.” Patience wearing thin, Aleks licks his lips and brings the bottom into his mouth, sinking his teeth into it.

“They found her in the quarry. Her eyes were missing, Aleks.” There’s a hysteria to Trevor’s voice, like that night at the lake, the first time they saw him. “Just gone!”

Aleks hangs up the phone, slamming it down on the ringer. It trills again about 10 seconds later, enough time for Trevor to redial his number, but Aleks ignores it. He swings his feet off the bed and stands, ignoring the dizziness he’s now accustomed to, and walks out of his room and down the stairs. 

The kitchen is dark when he walks in, no sign of his father. He can’t really even remember the last time he saw Terry. Most of his memories are hazy now. He only has the energy to live in the moment, if living is what he’s doing now.

The knick-knack drawer is open ever so slightly, but Aleks couldn’t give a shit, plunging his hands in for the key to his dad’s car. He neglects shoes, storming out of the front door and slamming it closed. 

He swears the house screams, not used to the onslaught. The slam seems to echo for miles.

Aleks yanks the car door open, scraping the bottom of it against the tarmac where it’s parked too close to the pavement, and gets in. The car creaks under the underwhelming weight of him, showing its age. It probably needs new oil and new water and new tyres. Probably needs the cab taken off completely and replaced. The age of the car leaves a weird smell hanging around. A Little Tree hangs from the rear-view mirror but Aleks thinks the scent ran out 15 fucking years ago, because it certainly doesn’t smell like a fresh breeze in here anymore.

Maybe it never did. Maybe the Little Tree just gave up the minute it was hung up. Maybe the Marchants have that effect on people.

He starts the car, and the engine screams to a start, juddering against the cold. A plume of black smoke flies out of the exhaust when the car kicks to a start, and Aleks pulls away. The road is dark and Aleks flicks the headlights on. They struggle but eventually wash the road in a warm yellow.

Aleks floors it. He can’t think straight. His anger is guiding him like a heat seeking missile, though his destination is anything but warm.

In 20 minutes, he’s pulling into the lake, haphazardly leaving the car wherever it lands when he hits the brakes. He leaves it running with the keys in the ignition when he gets out of the car. When he steps out, the pebbles are rigid and cold under his sock-clad feet, and he feels warmth against his heel where a particularly sharp stone draws blood.

He doesn’t care, marching over to the water and leaving spots of blood in his wake where the thin sock can’t contain it. The water soaks his toes where he’s stood so close to it, but he doesn’t care. 

Can’t really even feel it.

“Was it you?” He shouts into the blackness. If anyone else were here to witness this, they’d think he’d lost his fucking mind. They’d think he was screaming at nothing. But Aleks isn’t stupid, and he knows something is there.

“I know you’re there!”, his hands fly out to his sides in an attempt to project his voice, “Fucking answer me! Did you kill her?”

A head breaks the water, a slightly darker piece of dark. His hair sits flat and wet against his head. Eyes bleed through like they’re made of fucking light. Aleks’ hands fall to his sides.

“Did you fucking kill Danielle Estevez?”

The Boy doesn’t answer. Aleks sees red.

“Stay the fuck away from me. You’re a fucking monster.”

Alligators can swim at 20 miles per hour. An alligator could cross this lake in a minute flat. Somehow, the Boy is faster. Aleks starts towards the car but turns back in horror when the water splits down the middle like this is Exodus and Moses decided to pop in for a quick visit. 

Dread fills him as he watches the water move and barely has enough time to start running towards the car before a hand grabs him around the ankle and pulls.

Aleks falls face first towards the pebbles, his wrist bending unnaturally where he fell awkwardly on himself. There’s a sick cracking noise where the bone breaks and Aleks cradles it against his chest in agony. 

He doesn’t have much time to think about it, though, before he’s being dragged towards the water. He tries to get to the car. Lets go of his own arm and tries to grapple at the pebbles, tries to find an ounce of purchase to stop himself but he can’t. He looks behind him.

The Boy is crouched over, torso almost flat to the ground, looking feral and hungry for blood. His teeth are bared, sharp shining things, and his eyes are alight with rage. His bones in sharp angles where there is no meat on his bones. His hair is wet and thick with mud and it covers most of his face. He’s naked, and his skin is a sickly blueish colour. Aleks has never seen him like this before.

He moves at an inhuman speed, and Aleks screams as loud as he can, desperate for someone to hear him. Desperate to deafen the thing that’s dragging him into the water.

The salt-water washes over him and he tries to cough it up, but it keeps coming as the boy drags him further into the water. He opens his eyes, but it stings.

The water just keeps coming.

Aleks prays that he will let go, give up or give in and let Aleks swim to the surface but the water is getting darker and thicker and the pressure is bursting in his ears. He tries to kick his legs, but the boy has an impossible grip on his ankles, and Aleks is starting to lose the last ounce of breath he has. His vision is obscured by the water, but he can see his periphery going black. His chest feels overwhelmingly tight and he has no more energy to kick. His arms flail about his sides but it’s no use.

He closes his eyes and blackness overwhelms him.

* * *

He wakes up on the pebbles. The sun is blinding, and he brings a soaking sleeve up to cover his eyes. 

He tries to sit up, but he has an overwhelming headache and nausea sits heavy in his gut, and his broken wrist is huge and throbbing. He pulls his sleeve down to look at it and can see the bone protruding against the skin.

He turns to his side and throws up sickly, brown coloured water. He looks down his body, soaking and shaking with cold, and into the middle-distance towards the water. The Boy disappears underneath it the second Aleks spots him.


	8. Chapter Seven

The drive home is a painful one. He wouldn’t have been able to drive the car if it was manual, his arm sitting at a peculiar angle and throbbing and blue. He thinks he almost matches the colour of The Boy. Aleks wants to slam his head against the steering wheel, or steer the car into a tree. Even after an attempted murder, the first thing he thinks about is The Boy. He daren’t call him a monster, even in the comfort of his own head. Delirious laughter sits dangerously in the corners of his mouth. He’s afraid that if he starts, he won’t stop.

He’s not sure his thoughts are safe on their own. Not sure if **he** can hear them.

He rests his arm on his knee as he drives, and thinks about his options. 

  1. Leave his arm, go into septic shock, and die
  2. Drive to the hospital and get it reset
  3. Drive to Trevor’s house and hope to God his mother is home to sort it for him



He would almost prefer that The Boy drowned him and saved him the trouble of working out what to do next.

He decides the hospital is the best bet. It’s the closest destination on his very short list of options, and he’d prefer lying about a bad fall to an unsuspecting nurse than telling Trevor what happened. Telling Trevor that he was dragged into the lake and quasi-drowned by something only he can see. Telling Trevor that an eldritch horror is obsessed with him, but don’t you dare call him a _Monster_.

Aleks pulls into Western Massachusetts as an ambulance screeches out, sirens wailing. Aleks swallows against the nagging in his chest. Not every traumatic moment on the Earth’s surface directly relates to him.

He parks the car near the back of the lot and sits, car idling. He knows he needs to go in. He needs to get his arm reset, get some oxy and leave. The funny thing about being haunted is that you develop a sense of agoraphobia, and this is the most populated place Aleks has been in months. There’s a nausea bubbling in his stomach at the thought of being perceived by others, but he really has no other choice. 

He either walks in, or he drives away. He can’t sit in this parking lot forever.

The cold chill in the air sends a shiver down his spine when he gets out of the car. He’s distinctly aware that he looks like a vagrant; soaking wet, filthy and wearing no shoes. His soaks squelch as he walks towards the emergency department entrance, and ignores the painful throbs in the balls of his feet where the pebbles dug in.

The automatic door opens, and the warmth of the central heating almost melts him into a puddle. He suspects the nurses can smell him before they can see him, and he almost wants to apologise to the receptionist before he reaches her. She’s a middle aged white woman, and Aleks wants to smack himself for thinking about his mother.

“Hello”, she greets, her voice nasally where she’s trying not to breathe through her nose, “how can I help you today?” 

Aleks offers a terse smile and lifts his arm just enough, where it’s clasped against his chest, to show her. “I think my arm is broken”, he says, stating the obvious.

“Oh dear”, she says, “that certainly does look broken. If it’s possible, would you please fill out this form”, she speaks softly as if Aleks will spook, and passes him a form attached to a clipboard, “and bring it back to the desk when you’re done so we can see you”. She smiles warmly, and Aleks nods his thanks, retreating from the desk and sitting in a chair near the wall. 

It’s the usual age, name, address stuff. It takes Aleks longer than it usually would have, as he’s balancing the clipboard on his knee with the same arm he’s writing with. He thinks of The Boy. He wonders what he’s doing. He thinks to tell the nurse that he’s going crazy, but he doesn’t. 

The Boy defines him now. What is Aleks supposed to do in his absence?

Aleks stands, shakily, and walks over to the receptionist. She smiles as he hands her the filled out form and reassures him that the wait won’t be long. It doesn’t matter to Aleks, who can’t keep track of time anymore. It could take 3 minutes, it could take 3 years. It would feel the same.

“Mister Marchant?” A burly, dark haired doctor calls from an adjacent room. Aleks pushes himself up from the chair and wanders over to him, limping slightly on his foot, numb with pins and needles.

The doctor tells him to take a seat, and closes the door behind him. Aleks feels squirrely. Feels the urge to run away. He regrets coming. He should’ve tried to right it himself. Should’ve put his arm in the car door and slammed. Should’ve done a lot of things. Shoulda coulda woulda.

“How did you do this?” The doctor asks, pulling no punches, study Aleks with a clinical disregard. Aleks swallows.

“I fell over, or— I was swimming and fell coming out of the lake.” The lie is thick coming out of his mouth, and he’s nauseating by the desire to protect The Boy. To not let anyone in on their secret, like they’re having an illicit affair. 

“You were swimming in winter?”, the doctor asks, as he reaches forward to examine Aleks’ arm. 

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Aleks admits, and this time it’s not a lie. Going to the lake to confront The Boy _did_ seem like a good idea. Was a good idea until he offended him. Was a good idea until he decided to push and prod and see what would happen if he turned over the rock. 

“Well, Mister Marchant, it’s certainly broken. I would hazard a guess that it’s a clean break, which makes you a very lucky man”, he’s looking sternly at Aleks, and he feels the urge to laugh. Man? Aleks is still the motherless eight year old boy hiding under the bed. 

“What are my options?” Aleks asks, begging to God he can get out of here as quick as he got in.

“Well, we’ll cast it - with such a clean break, there’s no use for surgery - and then you’ll have to return in six weeks to be reassessed and hopefully, if the healing goes well, get the cast removed.”

Six weeks. As if Aleks could take six more weeks of what has been a tortuous two months. 

The doctor continues to talk, filling the silent room, “you’ll unfortunately be cast throughout Christmas but you’ll be going in the new year with a healed arm”, he smiles now, small but reassuring, and Aleks nods. The doctor dismisses him to write up notes, and the nurse calls him in to be cast a short twenty minutes later. She smells of vanilla. He doesn’t read her name badge; the less people he knows the better. For his sake and theirs.

He walks out of urgent care with a dashing blue cast, and a bottle of oxy. Aleks wants to laugh at the irony of arm being blue above and beneath the cast. He doesn’t laugh, but the maniacal laughter sits heavy in his lungs. The Boy is everywhere. 

When he gets into the car, it stinks. He doesn’t think about it. He doesn’t look at the passenger seat. He doesn’t look in the rearview. He barely checks his mirrors on the ride home. He sucks air in through gritted teeth, and he doesn’t smell the filth. He pops two pills and swallows them dry. 

He parks the car close to the curb and leaves it unlocked. There’s a silly inkling that if he locks it, the filth will be stuck in there, and he wants it gone.

The house is empty when he walks in, and the clock sits heavy at 12pm. He wonders how long he was laying on the pebbles at the lake. He wonders if his back will be mottled with bruises. He shuts the front door heavy behind him and locks it. 

A chill has set heavy in his bones. He curses quietly to himself, and walks up the stairs to draw a bath. He strips from his still sodden clothes and leaves them in a pile by the edge of the bath. He closes his eyes as he steps in and sits down, leaving the cast to rest on the lip of the tub. If he keeps his eyes closed, he can’t know if the water is black or not. If he doesn’t open his eyes, it’s just a bath. 

* * *

He opens his eyes an indiscriminate amount of time later, and the bath has run cold. Thankfully, the cast didn’t fall in the water while he was asleep. His still submerged body has pruned, and his fingertips, where he rubs them together, feel like a rotten clementine.

He stands up and lets the cold water drip from him. The water isn’t black, like the lake, but it is dirty. He must have been filthy. The smell in the car was probably him. He wants to slam his head against the tiled wall. His own senses are abandoning him.

He steps out of the bath and reaches for a towel on the rail, wrapping it around his waist. It’s old, and many trips to the washing machine have long since taken all the softness out of it, but it’s a small comfort.

He doesn’t bother to dry himself, and when he stumbles into his bedroom, he doesn’t bother to get dressed. He flings himself onto his bed, pulls the covers over his eyes and closes them. 

He waits for sleep to take him but the nap in the bathtub has rested him just enough that it doesn’t come easy, or at all. He feels abandoned. The Boy, no matter how putrid and scary he is, was a small comfort. Now, he feels betrayed. The fucker tried to kill him. Mangled his body. 

He wishes The Boy were here right now so he could beat the shit out of him, but he can barely lift an arm without all of his efforts these days. He’s surprised the doctor didn’t force a blood test on him.

_Sir, you’re deficient in every vitamin humanly possible. Frankly, this is a world record._

He turns to look at the blinking clock on his bedside table. It’s only 14:12. He didn’t nap for that long, then. He looks at the phone and thinks to call someone, but who? Who doesn’t feel burdened by him anymore?

When it rings, Aleks nearly jumps out of his skin. He reaches a pallid arm out from under the duvet to answer it, and Trevor is on the other line. 

Fuck, poor Trevor. 

“Oh, so you’re alive, then”, he says, in lieu of a greeting, bitterness riding on his every word.

“Hi, Trevor”, Aleks replies, voice small like he’s talking to his father, raised fist above him. He’s not afraid of Trevor by any means, but he knows that tone of voice and it doesn’t usually bode well.

“You are such an asshole. Where the fuck have you been? Did you listen to my messages? I left you 12! I thought you were dead!” Trevor rambles, and Aleks bites the urge to tell him to stop being stupid. This has become a familiar game. “I nearly called the hospital to see if they had a skinny little fuck admitted, but I thought better of it”, and then Aleks laughs.

“Had you done that, they would’ve passed me the phone”, Aleks admits.

There’s a bated pause before Trevor asks, just in case Aleks feels kind enough to elaborate without being prod to do so. “What are you talking about?”

“I was at the hospital. I got home, like”, Aleks checks the clock again, to make sure time is still moving linearly, “two hours ago, and then I fell asleep in the bath”.

“Are you okay? What happened? Do you want me to come over?” Trevor sounds desperate, and Aleks almost indulges him, but the thought of telling anyone why he had to go to the hospital almost chokes him.

“I’m fine, Trev, I fell down the stairs and broke my arm”, he lies. Guilt hangs over him like a guillotine. 

“What the fuck?,” Trevor guffaws, “are you a granny? You _fell_ down the stairs?”

“Oh, well I’m glad you can laugh at my misery! My arm was practically in two, asshole!” He doesn’t think to add, _and my lungs were so full of water I can still taste the lake._

“You’re an idiot”, Trevor says, voice thick with fondness. “Well-”, the line rattles while Trevor readjusts the phone, “I’m glad you’re not dead. Are you alright at home?” 

Aleks nods, and then thinks better of it, “I’m good. Go see your barista friend”, he teases, happy to have the conversation off him.

“Her name is Jennifer”, Trevor says, indignantly, pride slipping into his voice, “and I think she’s more than a friend”.

“Cradle snatcher”, Aleks chides.

Trevor gasps in mock outrage, “Hardly! She’s two years younger than me. I seem to remember there was an eleven year age gap between your parents”.

A sick feeling fills Aleks and he smiles too wide, mirthless, “and look how well that turned out.”

The line rattles but Trevor doesn’t say anything. Aleks thinks to apologise, but Trevor gets there first. 

“Sorry. That wasn’t what I meant”, and Aleks shrugs.

“I know.”

Aleks can practically feel the energy thrumming through the phone, and thanks the heavens when Trevor finally calls it, “This feels weird. I’m gonna go now. Have fun trying to crank it with a broken arm”, and Aleks laughs, even as the dial tone fills his ears. 

He puts the phone down on the receiver, and his nostrils flare with the smell of damp. He briefly thinks about unplugging the phone from the wall and hurling it across the room, but he doesn’t. He daren’t even turn around. 

“What do you want? Come to see your handy work?” Aleks almost says _, pardon the pun._ He blinks away the hot swell of tears welling up in his eyes.

“ **Does it hurt?** ” The Boy asks. Aleks wonders if he’s talking about his arm or the acrid swelling of betrayal swirling in his gut.

“What do you think?” 

“ **I think you want me to be sorry** ”, and Aleks thinks he would’ve preferred The Boy drowned him.

“Who are you?” Aleks bites, whipping his head around to stare The Boy in the eyes.

“ **I am sorry** ”. 

“I don’t care”, Aleks says, but they both know he’s lying, because his voice cracks, and his tears finally fall over the dam.

“ **I didn’t mean to** ”. The Boy is staring at the ground and Aleks has never seen him look so pathetic. Wants to hate the ground he walks on, wants to rip the sorry son of a bitch limb from limb. 

But you have to love something to hate it, so Aleks doesn’t hate him, because that would mean he loves him. 

“You’re ruining my life”, Aleks admits, rubbing a tired hand across his face. He doesn’t have much else to lose, and levels him with a look, “you betrayed me”.

“ **You were foolish to trust me** ”, The Boy looks at him then, “ **I’m a monster** ”.

Aleks flinches, like the insult is being thrown at him. He looks away. “I didn’t mean it when I said it. I was angry”. It sits like a prayer along his shoulders and blossoms in his chest until he could choke on it. 

What more could go wrong? Why not just say it?

“I love you, I think”. 

“ **Then you are more foolish than I thought** ”.

“Admit you love me, too.” The lump is his throat threatening to expand and cut off his oxygen entirely.

“ **I don’t** ”.

Aleks doesn’t care that he’s crying anymore. His face is slick with tears. “Then why are you here?”

“ **Do you want to know who I am?** ”

“More than anything”, Aleks pleads, begging like a hanged man.

Then there’s a knock at the front door. Aleks’ looks towards the noise and when he looks back, The Boy is gone. 

He punches the bed in anger, “Fuck!”, and puts his head into his one good hand. Sniffs and wipes his face, exhaustion sitting heavy on his back. He goes to stand and realises that he’s still naked, sans the towel long discarded and lost somewhere underneath the duvet. 

His face flushes with embarrassment. What a pathetic display he must have been, face running with tears and snot, professing his love to some fucking swamp creature, completely naked.

The knocks come again, louder this time. Aleks smacks the flat of his palm against the side of his head a few times for good measure, and stands up, grabbing blindly at whatever clothes are on his bedroom floor that are appropriate to answer the door in. Everything is dirty so he’s not picky.

He ambles down the stairs towards the door, leaning his good arm against the wall for balance, and stands for a second when he reaches the bottom. Waits to see if whoever his visitor is will give up and go away, but no dice. They knock again and Aleks gives in. 

He reaches for the key hanging in the lock and unlocks it, pulling it open and regarding the three officers at his door with a blank expression. 

“Hello, son”, one of them greets and Aleks thinks he vaguely recognises him from his youth.

“Hello?” He replies, not feeling polite enough to pretend to remember his name.

“I’m Officer Marlowe, this is Officer Spencer and Officer Bloom. We’re looking for your father.” His smile is warm but Aleks feels cold.

“He’s at work”. Aleks answers, knowing it doesn’t make much sense because presumably, the cops standing at his door just came from _work_ and his father wasn’t there.

“No, son. He isn’t.” He offers a sympathetic smile and Aleks fights the urge to punch it off his face. He knows it wouldn’t even register, and he’s not in the mood to be in a holding cell all night for assaulting a police officer. “Do you mind if we come in?”

“He’s not here”, Aleks argues, closing the door slightly to stop them from peering in. 

“We have a warrant.” The smaller, crabby officer, Spencer, sounds from the back. He can barely see over Marlowe’s shoulder and Aleks wants to laugh. And then the word _warrant_ hits him over the head with the force of a hammer.

“A warrant?”, Aleks asks, blood like ice in his veins, “for what?”

“We believe your father may be involved in the recent string of disappearances”, Marlowe takes over, gentle and warm, and Aleks is struck again by the realisation that he’s being treated like a fawn, “and the judge has issued a warrant for us to search the house”. 

Bloom stands at the back like a heavy. His eyes are vacant. Aleks wonders what he’s seen. 

“They weren’t disappearances. They were murders”, Aleks corrects.

“Murders, then.” Spencer says, suspicion sitting heavy in his eyes. 

Against his better judgement, Aleks opens the door. He doesn’t have much control over his body these days, and regardless of whether he wants it or not, they’re coming in. 


	9. Chapter Eight

Once the police have turned his father’s house upside down, Aleks returns to the only safe space he knows: underneath the bed.

Humphrey joins him, cradled against his chest so tight that Aleks’ knuckles are white. His eyes are squeezed tight and fireworks dance behind his eyelids. 

The police didn’t find anything, or the things they were looking for weren’t there. Aleks doesn’t know, they wouldn’t tell him. All he knows is that death follows him like a black cloud. The only way to protect the people around him is to withdraw. He even frets over Humphrey, a tattered old teddy with black, beady eyes - probably slaved over by a Chinese child slave. 

Sometimes he’s too afraid to look Humphrey in the eye, just in case he seems something he shouldn’t. 

He doesn’t know what he should and shouldn’t be seeing these days. Him and The Boy have begun to blur, and he can’t ignore the warmth and security he feels when he smells the thick, damp mud. He’s the dog Pavlov always wanted.

He knows he can’t stay under the bed forever, and Trevor’s 12 voicemails flash at him from the answering machine. He doesn’t want to play them. Wants to leave them as a reminder of Trevor’s voice when he inevitably leaves, or worse, dies. Because everyone leaves, and evidently, everyone dies.

* * *

When Aleks does leave, he doesn’t bother locking the door behind him. His house has already been invaded so there’s not much use in protecting his privacy. There’s nothing left for him there.

He drives, aimlessly, not knowing where he is welcome. The mustang kicks out black smoke, and Aleks laughs wryly. His car is killing the planet and he is killing his friends. He can’t imagine his friends like him anymore. 

He zones out; the road a series of blurs indistinguishable from each other. He knows the road like the back of his hand, or he thought he did, until his car hits a bump. Or two bumps. Once across the front wheels and once across the back. He feels like a ship on the sea.

Aleks stops the car and puts the handbrake on, but he doesn’t get out. He’s not stupid. He just hit something. At best, a deer, At the worst? Bile lurches into his throat and he only just swings the door open before he’s vomiting onto the tarmac. 

The smell of iron hits him as soon as the vomit hits the floor. 

It’s an overwhelming smell, and he can see the pool of blood in his peripheral vision before he’s even registered it. He turns his head, slowly, and sees the vacant eyes of Mark staring at him. His body fights to look away, but his eyes won’t move. He stares at Mark’s eyes staring at him.

He swings his legs out of the car, and stands unsteady. Humphrey watches him from the passenger seat. 

He walks around the car and stares at the eviscerated body of his favourite barista. Aleks thinks that’s his colon wrapped around the Mustang’s back wheel, but he can’t be sure. It’s just mush and sinew. Aleks braces his hands on his knees when the urge to faint washes over him. 

He scans the horizon for a payphone to call the police but there isn’t one. Besides, if he calls the police, it’ll only give Spencer more fuel to light the pyre that is his father’s supposed guilt. Is guilt by osmosis a thing?

Aleks surveys Mark’s body again. There’s not much distinguishable about him, but he knows it’s Mark, because Mark’s been missing for four weeks, and he was unlucky enough to know Aleks. Aleks never called him. He tried to memorise the number, but he never did. And now it’s too late.

Aleks thinks about driving away. Thinks about streaking the tarmac with Mark’s blood. Thinks about dragging his colon along the road until it detaches from between the tyres. Aleks doesn’t come up with any answers. He surveys the horizon again, and decides to knock on a nearby house and hope they have a phone.

He thinks about grabbing Humphrey from the passenger seat. He does.

He closes the door to the car but leaves the keys in the ignition in case he needs to get away fast. He doesn’t check the road before he crosses it. He climbs up the path to the safest looking house, walks up to a yellow door, and knocks. An older woman opens the door, _don’t think about your mother_ , and greets him with a thick Irish accent.

“Call the police”.

“Sorry, son? Are you alright?” She continues, reaching for him maternally as he steps back. He spares the niceties. 

“Please, can you call the police? There’s a dead body in the middle of the road and I just hit it.” Aleks almost revels in the way her skin blanches. Almost pleased that death can touch things besides him.

* * *

When the police arrive, Aleks is sitting on the old woman’s porch. Her name is Josephine, and she makes a lovely tea that Aleks has been nursing in a ceramic mug between his hands. He knows it’s lovely because she told him, not because he’s had any. He doesn’t think he can keep anything down. 

Marlowe and Spencer step out of the car, and Spencer’s face falls when he catches sight of Aleks. Aleks isn’t pleased he’s here either, but he was expecting as much. Marlowe is surveying Mark, or the crime scene, now cordoned off by paramedics who arrived shortly after. There’s a white sheet over Mark but his blood is leaking through. Aleks hears the paramedics say he hasn’t been dead long. 

He stares into the now cold mug of tea and avoids his own eyes. He can see how exhausted he looks. 

Marlowe approaches him slowly, and Aleks steels himself. Even now, after everything, his body is willing to put up a fight.

“Hi, Aleks”, he greets when he’s in earshot, “how are you doing?” Aleks can tell from the look on his face that the question feels inappropriate, but Aleks doesn’t have the energy to retort. He just shrugs.

Marlowe rolls his lips between his teeth and nods, sinking to crouch in front of Aleks. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

Aleks doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t want to see the careful expression on his face. “Not much to tell. I was driving and I hit something. When I got out to look”, Aleks gestures with his eyes towards Mark’s rotting corpse, “that was looking at me”. 

Marlowe nods. Aleks sees the muscles in his jaw work before he speaks. “He was dead before you hit him. You didn’t kill him”.

“What did?” Aleks raises his eyes now. Pleading for answers he knows the cop doesn’t have, and probably wouldn’t share if he did.

“Don’t know yet. The coroner will take him to the M.E for an autopsy.” 

“And then?”

“Then we’ll tell his family that their son is dead”, Marlowe runs a hand across his jaw, “two weeks before Christmas”. 

Aleks nods, solemn. 

Marlowe stands. “It isn’t your fault.”

Aleks sets the ceramic mug on the stoop beside him and follows him to stand. “Can I leave, then?”

Marlowe nods but looks regretful when he says, “Your car is evidence. I’ll get Spencer to give you a ride.”

Aleks snorts, Humphrey hanging from his limp hand. “Yeah, no thanks. I’d rather walk.”

Marlowe wants to argue, Aleks can see it on his face, but he doesn’t. Just stands aside, gestures with a hand, and lets Aleks go like he’s a captive animal being released into the wild.

* * *

Aleks aims for Trevor’s. 

He doesn’t know what he’s going to say when he gets there but he doesn’t want to go home. Doesn’t really know what home is anymore. He doesn’t know where his father is. All he knows is the county is after him, and there’s not a lot he can do with that information but let it stew.

He aims for Trevor’s, but ends up outside a library. There’s an itching under his skin, and a compulsion to walk through the door. So, he does.

The librarian greets him and her eyes catch Humphrey swinging back and forth. Aleks walks past her, and then doubles back.

“Hi”, she greets, grinning with a superficial, professional air. 

“Where would I find old newspapers?” She frowns, and he offers an elaboration, “research for school”.

She rises from her chair and points to the corner of the room, shrouded in a palpable layer of dust. “There’s our main catalogue, you can search by city, by publication name, or you can search specific terms”. 

He thanks her with a thin smile and walks over, tension sitting heavy in his shoulders. He sets Humphrey on the counter and scans through the catalogue for the obituaries for a familiar face but comes up empty. He looks at murders, but figures it a waste of time if the obituaries didn’t have what he was looking for. He scans alumni at local schools over the past decade or so, and then lands on a header titled:

_D I S A P P E A R A N C E S & A P P E A L S_

His finger scans the pages for familiar names. _Danielle Estevez_ is listed two pages in and he thinks better than to scribble her name out. It’s too late for monetary rewards, Mrs Estevez, your daughter is dead. There’s a distressing number of names, but when he reaches page four, his chest fills with dread until he can barely breathe.

Because there he is: 

**J A M E S W I L S O N**

**B R O W N H A I R A N D B R O W N E Y E S**

**5 F O O T 11 A N D 1 5 0 L B S**

**L A S T S E E N : J U N E 1 S T 1 9 8 2**

**P L E A S E C A L L S H E R I F F F O R I N F O**

James Wilson. _The Boy_. Four fucking years.

Brown hair and brown eyes. His eyes are so brown they look black. His hair so thick with mud it's perpetually brown.

He rips the page out of the catalogue, grabs Humphrey off the counter and storms out of the library. He can barely hear the librarian calling after him angrily, his pulse screaming in his ears. He half expects his aorta to fall out of his head.

He runs the whole way, and he knows his feet are bleeding. Knows he’s reopened the scabs on the soles of his feet. But he needs to see The Boy. He needs to see James, now.

* * *

The cloud hangs low. It stretches across the entire sky; one thick, black rain cloud. Aleks wants to scream into the air, wants to shout _are you fucking kidding?_ Wants to shake his fist at God for thinking this is funny enough to plague him with a literal dark cloud hanging over his head.

The pebbles falter under his feet as he runs towards the water.

He screams so loudly he swears he can taste blood. “James!” 

The water doesn’t move. Aleks sobs. “James, please! I know you. I know you, now! Please come out of the water!”

The water is still. Aleks hurls Humphrey as far as he can throw him and screams, the sound guttural and distraught. He falls to his knees and barely registers the sharp stone digging into his skin.

The world is still, like it’s stopped spinning. Aleks crawls over, meek, to wear Humphrey lays, sodden and forever dead eyed. He dares to look at the water once more, but there’s nothing there. Not even a bubble.

* * *

He goes to Trevor’s this time, and knows he must look like a wreck. His white socks are definitely ruined, and if Trevor’s mother was home, she’d make him strip on the doorstep so he doesn’t track mud through the house.

When Trevor opens the door, Aleks can barely look at him. He’s not used to being the bearer of bad news, just the harbinger. 

“Woah, what the fuck happened to you?” Trevor says, and Aleks knows he’s trying to keep the situation light. Knows what Trevor must see looking at him.

He hasn’t seen Aleks in weeks, not properly. Not hiding under lays of winter clothing. He’s probably 100lbs soaking wet, now. His eyes are probably sunken so far into his pallid, famished head that he looks like a bad taxidermy. Humphrey hangs in front of him, from his bony hands, like he’s a physical buffer between the poison coursing through Aleks and the open arms of Trevor. It’s only a matter of time before Trevor isn’t the antidote anymore. Only a matter of time before Trevor is dead, too.

Aleks knows he’s selfish for coming here. He knows that he should just kill himself. He’s an hourglass of sand reminding everyone of their own mortality. The longer they stay with him, the less time they have.

Best to make his peace with it.

“Mark’s dead”. 

Trevor licks his lips, and lets his tongue settle between them before he speaks. “How do you know?”

Aleks blinks slowly, feels white hot tears well up in his eyes, and marvels at how his body can even produce fluid. He dried out a long time ago. 

“I just ran over him. He was already dead, the cops said, but his guts are all over my car”. In another life, Aleks would have been gentle. In another life, Aleks would have been kinder. But his car is being held as evidence for an apparent murder, and Aleks can’t remember what Mark looked like alive.

Trevor braces one hand against the wall and the other against the partially open door. Aleks wonders if Trevor wants to shut it. Wants to leave Aleks outside. Wishes he hadn’t opened it at all. He doesn’t know what he wants Trevor to say, but, 

“I’m sorry”,

isn’t it. 

“My dad is missing”.

And then Trevor opens the door. 

He leads Aleks to the couch, and Aleks thinks twice about sitting down. He knows he’s filthy. He can’t remember the last time he showered. But he sits, anyway, because he’s exhausted. He sleeps more than he ever has but he’s never rested. Nightmares are blending into his memories and there’s no real difference anymore. 

Trevor passes him a hot coffee and sits across from him on the other couch. Aleks can’t blame him for wanting to keep his distance. For all Trevor knows, Aleks could be lying. It could’ve been Aleks all along. Aleks could reach behind his head and slit his throat. Could hold his jaw with one hand and twist with the other, letting go when the sickening crack of a broken neck echoes in the gaudy decorated living room.

No, Aleks doesn’t blame him. Aleks isn’t sure if he could resist anyway. Why not put Trevor out of his misery if he’s going to die anyway? Why not let him decide when it’s going to happen?

Aleks takes a sip of the coffee and lets it scald his tongue. 

“How do you know your dad is missing?” Trevor’s brows are furrowed as he nurses his own coffee, sat back on his seat with his legs crossed like he actually _is_ a therapist.

“The cops came looking for him”, Aleks rests the mug on Humphrey’s head, held between his legs, and adds, “with a warrant”. 

Trevor blinks. His chest expands with a stalling breath. “They don’t think - it can’t be, right? It can’t be your dad”.

“Can’t it?”

“You think it’s him?” Trevor’s voice rises in octave like it’s his own father’s innocence he’s defending. 

“He’s not a nice guy, Trevor”. The mug is burning his hands but he needs grounding.

“Yeah, but … a murderer? My ma saw those bodies, Aleks. It looked like a bear attack.” His face contorts like a child about to cry, “They only identified her by dental records”.

“Patricia”.

Trevor’s voice is clipped when he says, “if it’s your dad, doesn’t that mean —”

“The Boy’s name is James Wilson”.

Trevor’s head tips back, ever so slightly, like Aleks has spat, “The Boy?”

“In the lake.”

Trevor puts his head in his hands. “Jesus fucking Christ, Aleks. Your father is wanted and you’re thinking about some fucking monster in a lake you hallucinated?”

Aleks feels the world stop spinning. Hears the mug smash on the floor. Feels his hand picking up a porcelain ayame vase from the glass coffee table separating them and holding it above his head. His vision swims with red fury. Trevor has his hands above his head like the vase wouldn’t shatter all the bones in his arms. 

Aleks doesn’t want to. Aleks isn’t really sure he’s even in control when he brings the vase down on top of Trevor’s head. There’s a sickening crack, the sound of Trevor’s body slumping against the couch, and then a deafening silence. Aleks’ chest is heaving but he’s numb. 

He wants to feel sick, wants to feel anything, but he’s looking at the ebbing last breaths of his best friend, and feels nothing.

Aleks only considers him for a minute longer before he returns the vase, letting it sit in the ring of dust his mother had left. 

He turns without a word and leaves, tracking blood from his feet to the front door. 

He doesn’t look back.


	10. Chapter Nine

He goes home. Walks the three or so miles on toes that are probably broken. He can feel the tarmac through a hole in the bottom of his sock. 

When he walks into the house, it’s in disarray. He feels stupid thinking it was going to right itself. Thinking that he’d come home to a clean house and a fresh pie cooling on the window sill. Sometimes, he tricks himself on purpose. Wants to know if the grief is still there. Pokes and prods it and like a bloated frog on a summer’s day, rotting and alone.

He doesn’t want to be here, but he’s exhausted every one of his options (he only ever really had one). He hasn’t spoken to anyone besides Trevor and James in months. And he bludgeoned Trevor with his mother’s favourite vase. He’s not only exhausted all of his options, but he’s killed them all, too.

**James.**

There’s an itching at the back of his skull. He wants to peel his skin off and examine his insides. There’s something it wants him to know. He knows the name. 

“ **You wore my gym kit.** ” 

Aleks reels around, feet almost tripping over each other. James is standing so close he can feel the cold, wet air emanating off him. His hair is a matted mess atop his head, and he stinks. Aleks reaches a shaky hand towards his face, and James lets him touch. Almost nuzzles into his cupped palm. But when Aleks pulls his hands away, the skin of James’ cheek comes with it.

Aleks nostrils flare as he stares at the sloughed skin in his hand. “ **I’m rotting.** ” Aleks looks at him, wants to wipe the tears glistening in his eyes, but he doesn’t know what is going to fall off next. “ **That is why it’s foolish to love me.** ”

“It’s hardly a choice, James”. Aleks says, bitterly, though even he can hear his voice soften on James’ name.

James lunges towards him then, uses his forearm to brace Aleks against the wall by his throat, and kisses him. It’s all teeth, and it’s ferocious. Aleks doesn’t know if he can taste his own blood or James’. Aleks hums low in his throat, and swallows against the choking sensation as James increases the pressure. 

When he finally lets up and pulls away, Aleks sees James’ chin _dripping_ with blood, almost black, like a hyena baring its teeth. 

Aleks would let James ravage him. Would let James tear into his skin and eat him. He doesn’t say as much, but he can feel the desire seeping through his skin like if James were to stick out his tongue, he could taste it. Like letting a snowflake fall onto your tongue during the first winter storm. 

“Who did this to you?” Aleks says, twirling a piece of James’ matted hair around his finger. 

James shakes his head, mindful of Aleks’ finger still partially attached to it, and stays quiet. Aleks reaches his free hand and slides it under James’ tattered shirt, placing his palm against his belly, sunken in. Aleks could thread his fingers through James’ ribs without much effort at all. “Please”, he begs, kisses James’ chin, tongues the blood off his lips when he pulls away.

“ **It’ll hurt**.”

“Everything hurts”.

“ **The police are going to call you** ”. 

“Why?”

“ **My body is in the trunk of the Mustang.** ” 

James is holding Aleks by the waist now and his arms shake with the effort to hold him up, to stop his legs from collapsing underneath him.

“You’re joking.” Aleks’ eyes are wide and pleading, Humphrey’s black eyes watching from the floor between their feet. The bear watches as Aleks’ life continues to crumble at the edges.

“ **You’ll remember when you’re ready** ”, James says, with a sickening finality. Perhaps that’s why James has always avoided any direct questions, why he only answers when he wants to: because Aleks already knows. Somewhere, buried under layers and layers of dirt, Aleks already knows the answer.

Aleks closes his eyes and expects to be leaning against the off-white wall in their foyer when he opens his eyes, but when he does, James is still there, staring with something akin to pity. As if he’s not the dead one. 

* * *

When the call does come, Aleks lets it ring off. He doesn’t know if he can will his hand off the bed to answer it. 

Trevor’s 12 messages still flash a dark red. His cracked skull flashed a deep red, too. 

Aleks doesn’t play them. He decides to wait until grief has settled in his bones. Otherwise, it’s a waste. He needs it to punish himself later. 

He wonders if bloodthirst is genetic. Because if the police are right, and his father is a murder, or a serial killer most likely, then half of Aleks finds comfort in a violent streak too. He’d never even been in a school fight before, always too small and too quiet. Too _weird_ for the bullies to pick on him, especially after his mother’s ... he wants to think ‘ _disappearance’_ but he knows better now. 

If James is right, and his body is in the trunk, then the smell in the car isn’t mud. It’s rot. The tree hanging from the rearview mirror probably holds all of the microbes his body released as it was rotting. Aleks wants to keep it in a keepsake box. Wants any part of James he can get. When they pull his body from the trunk, he wants the police to pass him a box of James’ teeth that he can keep on his windowsill. Wants all of him.

Aleks wonders about James’ parents, if he has any, if he survived them or if they survived him. He wonders when they stopped looking. Aleks’ wonders how long it would take his father to stop looking. Or though, he supposes, if Aleks’ father knows where his body is, he’d have no reason to look.

The phone rings. Aleks answers without thinking.

“Hello?” His voice cracks and he clears it against his closed fist.

“Mister Marchant?” Aleks expected Marlowe but this is a voice he’s unfamiliar with. It sits inside his body like lead.

“Yes?” Keep it blunt so they can’t ask any questions.

“My name is Officer Michael Miller and I’m with the Western Massachusetts Police Department. We’d like you to come in to answer a few questions”. Aleks can hear the litany of typing in the background and wonders what he’s missing.

“You have my car, and I have no money for the bus”. He’s lying. He’s hoarded money his father has left him for take out for weeks, but they don’t need to know that. They don’t need to know that he’s been surviving on coffee and aspirin since this whole thing started. 

“We’ll send a car to pick you up. Is fifteen minutes enough notice?” 

Aleks squeezes his eyes shut, and nods. “That’s fine”, thinks better of it, and then asks anyway, “is my father there?”

“We’ll talk about it when you get here, Mister Marchant”. Miller says, and hangs up. Aleks uses the dial tone like white noise and breathes as deep as his lungs will allow. 

He knows he has to wash his hands before he goes. He doesn’t need evidence under his nails that he’s been at Trevor’s house. Humphrey’s filthy little body lays at the foot of the bed watching him. 

Aleks decides to shower for the first time in a while. He strips his clothes and leaves them in a pile on top of the pile already there. He turns the shower on and turns the temperature dial to scolding. He hopes it’s hot enough to flay him. 

He steps in and lets the water wash over him. Holds his cast out of the spray. Doesn’t flinch. He feels James’ hands before he sees them, wrapping themselves around his gaunt abdomen. Aleks leans back and lets James’ hair tickle his face. He knows better than to turn around, because turning around means James disappears. 

James’ hand slithers round to Aleks’ cock and he pulls once, slow, but Aleks is limp. 

“Sorry”, he whispers towards the tile, barely audible above the sound of the water.

“ **In another life** ”, James says, voice thick with emotion. With grief. Aleks feels heartbroken that their time together has been fraught with tragedy. He swallows a sob and snakes his one good hand down to his abdomen to link his hands with James’. The skin comes away and Aleks is staring at sinew.

“How much time do you have?”

“ **None to begin with** ”.

“Have you been here at all?” Trevor was right, and Aleks drove a vase through his skull. James is a hallucination. 

“ **With you? No** ”, and then the grief pours in. Aleks feels his knees buckle, and he braces for them to hit the acrylic of the bathtub. Doesn’t care that his cast is getting wet. Wants to rip it off and stare at his brittle bones.

He broke his own arm and fell in love with an illusion.

Trevor’s blood is soaking into his mother’s heirloom couch because Aleks is a harbinger of death.

* * *

He dresses in clean clothes and lets the desk-duty cop escort him to the car. He offers Aleks the passenger seat but he sits in the back. He figures he should get used to being a prisoner if Trevor’s body is found next to a broken mug with his saliva on it. If his fingerprints are found on vase dripping blood onto on the coffee table.

His cast is loose on his arm, and he pushes it against his chest, leans over slightly to apply pressure. He wants the pain to ground him. Wants to feel like he’s actually inside his body, and not floating somewhere above it like an angel falling from grace. Like Icarus with those wax wings scorched to the skin of his back. 

The cop doesn’t say anything, thankfully. The energy flowing off Aleks is probably suffocating, and Aleks can’t blame him for staring out of the windscreen and only once flicking his eyes up to the rearview to check Aleks is still there. Aleks watches out of the window, and doesn’t let his mind wander. There’s only one destination it wants to go, and that place has been a fabrication the entire time.

Aleks knows he’s made it all up, but he can still feel James around him. 

The cop doesn’t seem to be in any rush, and Aleks wants to know why he’s stalling. He sits at stop signs for a beat too long not to be. 

They sit at a cross section for 3 minutes. Aleks watches the wristwatch the cop is wearing tick by. There are no cars coming. He could go if he wasn’t waiting for something.

“Officers are going to search your house while you’re at the station”, and the desk-jockey’s eyes are flitting around like he’s divulging information he swore secrecy to, even as he’s pulling away from the stop sign and continuing down the road. He doubts the station will be happy if the both of them end up wrapped around a tree because Nervous Nelly couldn’t keep his eyes on the road.

Aleks wonders why he waited until now to tell him, or why he said anything at all. Control, maybe? There’s nothing Aleks can do about strangers tearing up his childhood bedroom if he’s sat in the back of a cop car, or handcuffed to a desk.

“I thought they already did”, he says, bitterly. He’s hardly going to give the cop a reaction if that’s what he’s after.

The response is cool and unbothered, like there isn’t a churning, anxiousness at disrespecting authority filling the car like a noxious gas, “they have reason to believe they missed something.”

“Why are you telling me now?” Aleks left Humphrey on his bed. He hopes the police are kind if they take him for evidence. He doesn’t need Humphrey vivisected, too. He’d like one thing around him to stay unscathed, if that’s possible.

“It’s something they’re going to ask you about. Thought it’d be nice to know first.” He meets Aleks’ eyes in the rear view mirror and there’s an innocence to them that Aleks wants to ruin. Wants to drown. Aleks doesn’t need “nice”. 

“How long have you been a cop?” 

“They’ll ask about your mother.” He’s avoiding Aleks’ eyes now. Aleks wants to wrap his fingers around the dividing metal and shake it. He really wants to scare someone. Really wants to not be afraid. For once.

Instead, he sits back in his chair and sulks. He raises his eyebrows, briefly. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” 

“How long has it been?”

Aleks doesn’t give him the benefit of an answer. He’s not going to allow himself to be poked like a ready to pop blister by a yellow-bellied cop. Most likely a Navy dropout. Probably couldn’t take the ambition.

“You better get comfortable. You’re gonna be here a while.”

* * *

The cop pulls into a space and stops the car. He’s hard on the brakes and it jostles Aleks’ into the divider. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and wills James into existence, but the air is clear and he knows that when he opens his eyes, the seat next to him will be empty. The sound of the car door opening forces him to accept the reality but he can hardly move. The weight of loss sits across him like an anvil. He feels paralyzed. The cop clears his throat and gestures with his hand for Aleks to move, so he does. He may have lost his mind but he’s not losing his autonomy, too. 

Weeds grow through the paved parking lot, and Aleks kicks a pebble on the way into the station. 

He knows she’s here before he’s seen her, and when he looks at her, he knows she’s thinking the same. 

Trevor’s mother is sitting in a chair near a desk in the middle of the bullpen. Her hands, covered in blood, are laying limp in her lap. An officer is sitting forward on his knees in an effort to console her, but she’s staring right at him, eyes alight even as they’re spilling tears down her face. She’s shiny in the luminescent light. She looks like she’s on fire.

_“A mother always knows”_ , as his mother used to say. He averts his gaze and follows his chauffeur to the furthest desk in the station. He sits him on the chair and offers him a cup of water, which Aleks accepts just to have something to do with his hands, plucking at the rim of the plastic until it unbends. 

Marlowe comes to sit across from him, and offers him a polite smile. Aleks knows this is going to get ugly. It’s stuffy in here and everyone is tense. He smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. 

“Hello again, Aleks”, he greets, and Aleks notes the distinct lack of his affectionate ‘son’ he’s grown accustomed to. Aleks nods, not trusting his voice. “I’m sorry to have to see you, again. I wish it could’ve been different.” Aleks takes a sip of water, bites the rim of the plastic.

Marlowe clears his throat, shuffles papers on his desk, and folds one leg across his knee. “What do you know about a—”, he looks down at his paper just for show, “James Wilson?”

Aleks can feel his eyes widen. Feels like blood drain from his face. Swallows the acid crawling up his throat. “Nothing.”

Marlowe narrows his eyes. “We found his body in the boot of your dad’s mustang.”

Aleks’ head bows, and he puts it in his hands where they’re resting on his knees. 

“We think he’s been there for a while, considering the state of decay. He was essentially a pile of bones. The medical examiner could only identify him by dental records”, he bends to try and meet Aleks’ eye, “we’re holding your father for his kidnap and murder.”

Aleks’ head shoots up to meet his gaze, “my dad is here? Can I see him?” 

Marlowe tips his head and purses his lips, “he’s being questioned at the moment. If you think you can get any information out of him, we’ll let you in”, Aleks’ chest heaves, “but we have to be sure you didn’t know anything about this.” He slides a photo out of the manilla envelope on his desk and holds it out to show Aleks.

James' wilted body curled up in the trunk like a fetus. Like a flower waiting to bloom. Aleks may have helped Brett pass biology but there’s not a hope in hell he can identify any of those bones but the cracked skull, covered in a matt of black, curly hair, still hanging on. 

This, in the back seat of his dad’s Mustang may be James Wilson, but it isn’t his **James.**

“I didn’t”, Aleks says, finally, “I didn’t. I don’t even know who James Wilson is”. James betrayed him and now Aleks has betrayed James. Checkmate. 

“If you’re lying, son, we’ll hold you on obstruction of justice”, he threatens but Aleks already knows his guard is down. Affection is warm in his voice.

“I didn’t know anything”. 

Marlowe lips his licks and nods, curt. “Okay. I’ll have an officer escort you to the questioning room. I’ll warn you now: everything in there is recorded. There is nothing that either of you can say that we won’t hear.”

Aleks sticks his tongue between his molars and squeezes, nods. Jumps head first.

  
“Take me to him, please.” Aleks means to say, _Take me to **James**_ , but it’s too late for miracles.


	11. Chapter Ten

His father looks haggard. His face is unshaved, and he has a general layer of dirt across his entire body. Aleks wonders where he’s been, but he doesn’t bother asking. He doubts his father will tell him now, if he didn’t have the consideration to tell him where he was going. 

Aleks sits across from him and sets his half empty cup of water on the table just to hear something other than silence. He can hear the whir of the tape recorder falling over itself. Aleks swallows.

“What did you do?” His voice echoes across the walls until it’s practically circling him.

“Don’t talk with that tone, boy”, even now, handcuffed to the table in clothes that stink, his father can’t help himself.

“Why was there a body in the trunk?” 

His father won’t look at him. Aleks slams his hands palm down on the table and the noise shocks his father, who looks at him with a fire in his eyes.

“They’re charging you with murder, you know that? The _deputy sheriff_ ”, Aleks chides, voice like poison, “you’re lucky they didn’t shoot you on the car ride here. They’ll probably seek the death penalty, to show you a lesson.”

“You oughta’ be locked in here, too”, his father says, muscles in his jaw threatening to break the skin where he’s gritting his teeth so hard.

“For what? I didn’t abduct and murder someone!” Aleks is leaning over the table like a feral dog, waiting for his father to finger the right wound so he has reason to fling himself over the table and throttle him.

“You were there.” His fathers speaks slowly, cruelly.

“I was where?” Aleks’ breath is shallow. **_You’ll remember when you’re ready._ **

“You watched me do it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”, Aleks argues, even as his vision begins to cloud over.

* * *

_Going for a piss. You stay in that car, boy, and you don’t move. I won’t be long._

The mustang is parked just shy of a ditch on a country road. It’s dark, dawn if Aleks had to guess. His father had wrestled him out of bed for an impromptu fishing trip, much to his dismay. He’d loaded Aleks into the backseat and piled rods on his lap, given him a box of reels and bait to hold onto. 

Aleks can’t remember ever going on a fishing trip before. He doesn’t know how to bait a line, and he doesn’t know how to catch a fish. His father is setting him up for failure. But he’s not exactly the kind of guy you say no to. Aleks would rather push the punishment as far back as he can.

Aleks, still bleary eyed and barely awake, nods to his dad, and waits. Cardinals sing from their perches high up in the trees, and Aleks closes his eyes, lets himself drift off to the calls. 

He’s startled awake when the trunk of the car is heaved open, jostling in his seat. He can hear boots scraping against the ground, and then a thick, wet, _clunk_. He doesn’t dare turn around. Relying solely on his ears, he can hear his father’s heaving breath as he wrestles to put something in the trunk. The trunk slams and then his father calls out to him.

_“Boy?”_

“Yeah, pop?”

_“Crawl into the front and grab a rag from the glove compartment. We hit a deer. Get out of the car and wipe this blood off.”_

Aleks doesn’t remember hitting anything, but he’d been half asleep for most of the journey, so maybe they had. He sets the bait box on the seat beside him, stands the rods up in the foot well, and leans forward to the front of the car. There’s a shotgun perched in the footwell of the passenger seat. Aleks doesn’t look twice. He doesn’t want the barrel aimed at his head for asking about it.

He pulls the only rag in the compartment out. It’s covered in something like oil but it’ll have to do. It’s too cold to strip a layer of clothing and use that. He opens the passenger side door and climbs out of the car as his dad slams the trunk shut. 

He approaches the trunk and sees the splattering of blood across the trunk, and then he sees the blood leaking out of it. 

“Are you sure it’s dead?”

_“You talkin’ back, boy?”_ His father advances towards him and Aleks ducks to miss the fist he knows will be coming if he doesn’t. _“Spit on the rag, I’m not wasting water”._

Aleks hocks from his throat, spits on the rag and wipes until the cloth is stained red-black with blood. The car isn’t clean by any stretch, but it wasn’t before this incident. Aleks waits to see if the deer in the trunk has stopped leaking, and then his father calls.

_“Hurry up, son, or we’ll miss a good spot”_. 

Aleks gets into the back, and leans over the console to put the rag back in the glove compartment. He catches his father’s grin and smiles at him, hoping it was pride shining brightly in his eyes. 

Now he knows better.

* * *

Aleks blinks the wet back from his eyes. “That was him?”

“So you do remember.” Aleks’ father is smug.

“I remember cleaning deer blood off the back of the car”. Aleks says, slowly, trying to convince himself of his own innocence, despite the mounting evidence that he’s an unknowing accomplice to his serial-killing father.

“And he was such a dear, didn’t put up much of a fight at all.”

Aleks crushes the plastic cup in his hands and water squirts out the top, coating his hands.

“Why?”

“I couldn’t stop myself. I saw him and I had to have him”. 

He could never have his **James.** If Aleks couldn’t have him, no one could.

There’s a blood-thirst thrumming under Aleks’ skin. He wants to cut his father pelvis to jaw, and let him die with his organs sitting in his lap. Let him die holding a pile of his own shit. But then he’d prove his own theory: that whatever evil lies between his father’s bones is genetic, and it’s only a matter of time before it comes for him, too.

“Was he the only one?” Aleks already knows. He can list every single person that came after James Wilson. What he means to ask if _‘was he your first?’_

He hears a phone ring in the bullpen, and then someone comes into the room. Marlowe takes a seat next to Aleks and puts the thick manilla folder on the table. 

“That was the team at your house. They’ve found your wife’s body in the attic.”

His father’s wife? His father hadn’t married since—

“It was her. She was your first”. Aleks says. The dog-shaped stains in his ceiling were his mother’s blood and muscle leaking through the attic floor.

“Your mother was an accident”. 

“An accident you decided to hide in the fucking attic, above my _bedroom_?” Aleks shouts, and Marlowe flings a hand across his chest to keep him in his seat.

“Don’t raise your voice to me, _boy_ ”, his father snarls. 

“You murdered my mother, _your wife,_ and hid her in the attic for seven fucking years”, Aleks briefly wonders if he can be held for threatening his father’s life, but he suspects every cop in the place would turn the other cheek if Aleks decided to kill him right there and then, “you should count yourself lucky that there’s a cop in here to stop me from doing the same to you”. 

Marlowe lets it sit for a second before he takes a hold of Aleks’ arm and escorts him out of the room. They wait outside, and Aleks watches Bloom and Spencer walk in, and Aleks presses his ear to the wall to listen.

“Terrence Marchant, you are under arrest for the murders of Mary Marchant, James Wilson, Danielle Estevez, Larry Brooks, Patricia Fields and Marco Garcia. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will and can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, and if you cannot afford one, they will be provided for you.”

It takes three murders to make you a serial killer. The police know of six, but if Aleks knows his father, which he isn’t sure he does anymore, who knows how many there actually are.

He leans against the wall and slides down, tucking his feet in and wrapping his arms around his legs. Marlowe crouches to put a physical barrier between him and his father being escorted out of the questioning room and marched towards a police car.

“He’ll be held in Cedar Junction until he’s arraigned”, Marlowe grips his shoulder and squeezes reassuringly. 

“With all due respect, Sir, I hope someone guts him as soon as he walks in.” 

Marlowe offers him a sympathetic smile, and clears his throat, “I know some good therapists through the station. I can get you in touch with some.”

“I’m not interested in a shrink”. Aleks wishes he had Humphrey. He’s a good enough therapist. He doesn’t talk back and he doesn’t use Aleks’ words against him.

“With all due respect, _son,_ your father just admitted to killing your mother along with five other people. You’re probably going to need some help.”

Marlowe stands with some effort, grunting as his legs straighten, and offers a hand for Aleks to stand. He takes it and lets himself be pulled up.

“I’ll think about it.”

* * *

Trevor’s funeral is held on the 12th. Aleks hears through the grapevine that half the school attended. He doesn’t go, but he visits the headstone a week later, when everyone should be busy with their Christmas shopping. Aleks wonders what Trevor's mother will do. Whether she’ll hang his stocking on the fireplace and pretend that her son isn’t six feet under in mangled pieces, or whether she’ll work the night shift and pretend that there isn’t garland and lights and trees dotting every corner of the hospital.

He bought a cheap, piece of shit car to replace the casket he was driving around with the food money his father had left him over the years. It's a piece of shit, and Aleks has to kick it every morning to get the engine to turn over, but it doesn't have a decaying body in the trunk, so it's better than what he had.

The police won’t give the Mustang back, and he isn’t really sure he even wants it back. He drives it to the gas station to fill up and he buys the cheapest bouquet of flowers the place has to offer. He doesn’t talk to the cashier.

Old habits.

He sits in front of Trevor’s expensive headstone, garish like his mother’s life depends on it. Aleks figures he should stop thinking about other people’s lives, especially when he ruined hers. Let her buy the ugliest headstone she wants, who can blame her?

He doesn’t say anything. Just sits on his knees in the frozen, winter mud and looks. He wasn’t even eighteen. Aleks wants to find someone to be angry at, wants to shift the blame, wants to blame a drunk driver, or a drug overdose at a highschool party, but he can’t. Because he drove an expensive vase through his best friend’s head. He has no one to blame.

He hears footsteps in the frozen grass behind him but doesn’t turn. “I know it was you.” 

Lindsey’s voice is too loud for a graveyard, and Aleks wants to chide her to honour the dead, but he can’t even pivot his head to look at her. He would’ve preferred Trevor’s mother accuse him. Not Lindsey. Lindsey was too much like a mother. Aleks feels like a scorned child, again. Except this time, Lindsey isn’t accusing him of missing classes, she’s accusing him of cold-blooded murder.

He doesn’t answer her. She doesn’t move. He wants her to hit him. To push him. But she doesn’t, because she doesn’t have a violent streak. Her words cut deep enough that she doesn’t have to rely on her body. “His mother suspects you, you know.”

“I know”, he says, “I saw her at the police station”.

“So it was you?” She sounds bereaved, like she was hoping he’d call her an idiot and proclaim his innocence.

“I couldn’t stop myself.”

“Oh, my god, Aleks”. She says, her voice muffled by her mittened hand over her mouth. “What did you do?”

Aleks knows the minute it leaves his mouth that his life is over. “I drove a vase through his head.”

She sobs, loud. The birds fly from their high place in the trees. “Why? Why did you do it? My God, what is wrong with you?”

“I don’t know, Lindsey. I'm sorry.” He isn't.

“Don’t”, she laughs, quick and humourless, the breath leaving her body in a short burst, “don’t say my name. I can’t even stand to be near you. I’m going to the police.”

Aleks listens to her receding footsteps and levels a look at Trevor’s face, grinning face shining from the frame in the headstone.


	12. Epilogue

The drive to the lake is a short one, but it feels long. He’s not sure he even hits the speed limit. The car, despite struggling under the pressure, carries him. He casts a quick look to the passenger seat, wishing desperately that Humphrey was sitting beside him. He’s probably cold and lonely in the evidence locker, and Aleks only briefly thinks about breaking in to get him out.

Briefly and only once. The fact of the matter, no matter how painful, is that the only two comforts in his life exist as a) a stuffed bear with dead eyes, and b) a dead boy that he hallucinates. He was, frankly, doomed from the start. 

He hasn’t heard any sirens. He knows Lindsey’s gone to the station. She’s a moral woman. She may have loved Aleks once but her need to do the right thing outweighs anything she feels towards him anymore. He’s just like his father, he knows. Lindsey didn’t need to say it for him to know she wanted to. Even then, she couldn’t cut him that deep. Even standing in front of a grave, with her murdered friend six feet under, she couldn’t compare him to his father. Maybe it wasn’t kindness at all, but fear. Maybe she feared what Aleks would do if she voiced the thought. Maybe she’d be next.

Trevor was an accident, yes, but how long until that blood-thirst comes back and he decides to kill a boy and hide him in the trunk of his car? How long until he kills his wife and stuffs her body in the attic above his son’s room?

Aleks kills everything he touches, whether by his hand or by osmosis, and it needs to end with him to truly end.

When he pulls up to the lake, he’s not decided. When he parks in front of the water, he’s not decided. When he lets the handbrake up and hears the pebbles rolling under the tyres, he’s not decided.

But then he looks into the middle distance, and sees a bubbling on the water. Sees **James** watching him, his **James** , eyes just above the surface, hair floating on the top in a dark, languid circle.

Aleks lets the car roll towards the water. Lets the dank water fill the footwell. Doesn’t hold his breath when his head goes under the water. He looks to the passenger seat, eyes burning through filth, and sees **James** sitting beside him, smiling wide.

Aleks takes a deep, aching breath, smiles just as wide, and lets the water fill his lungs.

* * *

**_“We will meet again in the lake, you as water I as lotus blossom. You will carry me, I will drink you.”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been in the works for too long, and was briefly abandoned, before I felt the compulsion to finish it. 
> 
> It was never going to end well. I don't like happy endings. 
> 
> This is mostly unbeta'd, so if there are any glaring mistakes that Google Docs didn't catch, let me know. 
> 
> End quote is from Love VI by Rose Ausländer (translated by Vincent Homolka).


End file.
